When everyone was making technology predictions at the end of 2007, I boldly stated that 2008 would be the year of the Widget. I have made the occasional tweet about widgets as well.
Finding their foothold in the Facebook/MySpace work, marketers are now thinking of about widgets as a means to spread content and to make money. The Search Marketers have also jumped on the band wagon to use widgets to drive content dissemination and create valuable inbound links.
With people using widgets in a tactical way, I kept thinking that a lot of useless widgets were being make for the sake of the aforementioned objectives. I discovered a new tool called Widgenie that strikes a nice balance between capability and content.
Ok, it is not a great name, but it is a useful online charting tool that produces widgets. It was really easy to get off of the ground (I added one to the bottom) in a matter of minutes.
It is a nice use of widgets because it allows authors to add supporting charts and graphs without having to embed charts. I find it is easier for some users to see the visual instead of just reading the statistics.
In addition, the widgenie graph will allow other users to pick up the chart and use it as well. Aside from being an assistance to readers, the idea conquers the other objectives of content dissemination and inbound link growth.
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