Sunday, November 05, 2006
Thoughts on Widgets
A friend asked me about what I thought of widgets recently. Beth Kanter has been a non-profit technology consultant for some time and is championing Web 2.0 in this arena. She has asked what people in the industry think about widgets and the level of acceptance/utility they will have in building community.
The Web’s holy grail has always been the creating of community. For the most part, it takes a group of zealots to create community on the Web. Great examples are:
The Ferret Moderated List—a listserv that has existed for ever.
The AVSForum—A forum of audio/videophiles.
The MacAddict Forums—a place for Mac-obsessed technophiles.
iDog.com—forums for dog lovers
Any time you have folks that are passionite about something, you will see community build around that thing/topic.
Asking whether widgets will foster community is a tricky question. The predisposition for community will exist whether widgets are used or now. What a widget will do is make it easier for that community to embed interesting rich content into sites. This in turn attracts others to come participate.
If you are a dog lover, given the chance, you won’t just write about your dog. You will post pictures and videos as well.
Video sites, with the ability to create widgets, allow for the easy inclusion of video collections on supporting sites. The same goes for photography sites. Give people the chance to comment on content, and they will if you can garner the traffic.
The arts are in a unique position to leverage these video, audio, and photo sites. The arts are all about sharing content. It makes sense for our art institutions to take advantage. Will they? It remains to be seen but I believe that in order for these organizations to remain relevant with today’s consumers, they are going to need to. Gen X and Y EXPECT interactivity. If you come to them with static sites, you’ve lost them right away.
This really speaks to participation in the arts and the shift in the way participation manifests itself. I believe that the industry needs to re-frame how participation is defined and work to be relevant in today’s consumers’ minds.
Check out Beth’s commentary on her blog.
The Web’s holy grail has always been the creating of community. For the most part, it takes a group of zealots to create community on the Web. Great examples are:
The Ferret Moderated List—a listserv that has existed for ever.
The AVSForum—A forum of audio/videophiles.
The MacAddict Forums—a place for Mac-obsessed technophiles.
iDog.com—forums for dog lovers
Any time you have folks that are passionite about something, you will see community build around that thing/topic.
Asking whether widgets will foster community is a tricky question. The predisposition for community will exist whether widgets are used or now. What a widget will do is make it easier for that community to embed interesting rich content into sites. This in turn attracts others to come participate.
If you are a dog lover, given the chance, you won’t just write about your dog. You will post pictures and videos as well.
Video sites, with the ability to create widgets, allow for the easy inclusion of video collections on supporting sites. The same goes for photography sites. Give people the chance to comment on content, and they will if you can garner the traffic.
The arts are in a unique position to leverage these video, audio, and photo sites. The arts are all about sharing content. It makes sense for our art institutions to take advantage. Will they? It remains to be seen but I believe that in order for these organizations to remain relevant with today’s consumers, they are going to need to. Gen X and Y EXPECT interactivity. If you come to them with static sites, you’ve lost them right away.
This really speaks to participation in the arts and the shift in the way participation manifests itself. I believe that the industry needs to re-frame how participation is defined and work to be relevant in today’s consumers’ minds.
Check out Beth’s commentary on her blog.
