Valley PR Blog

Who needs a widget? You do!

By Angelo Fernando on July 8th, 2008 In Social Media

Let’s face it. The things that are supposed to make our lives easy continue to befuddle us: trackbacks, podzines, twebinar, RSS. The widget, however, is easier to like.

Yahoo! has this really neat ‘Typing Speedometer‘ widget that you never knew you needed –until now! Wikipedia has a cool widget, many blogs are littered with widgets, and Facebook users hit on you with widgets until you want to reach for the pepper spray. One day you’re gonna bump into one so before someone gets hurt (I spotted two attack widgets) get to know how to use a few of them. You could always get the Dummies book on widgets, but here are some useful places to start:

PRSA web site has a primer on widgets.
There are Google ‘Gadgets‘ that are sort of widgets. Want to dig deeper, read this –with caution.
Try out a widget or two on your desktop -no programming required.
If you have a blog, there are the top 50.

Comments

Although I applaud the development of gadgets that may (or may not) make our electronic lives easier, I have to put a naysay to the use of the term ‘widget.’ I suppose this is a losing battle by now, but why has this perfectly good term, meaning “an unnamed or hypothetical manufactured article” been co-opted when there’s a perfectly good term, ‘gadget’ already in place for what it really does?
Actually, we probably need a neologism for this new concept…perhaps ‘e-gadge’ or ‘webgadge’?
Call me a fuddy duddy (if you dare) but writers and word lovers must lament every time a useful distinction — such as the difference between ‘disinterested’ (having no stake in the outcome) and ‘uninterested.’ (not giving a rat’s patoot about the outcome)– goes by the wayside thanks to the uncaring and barbaric
whim of the tin-eared ignorantia.

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