Category: Services & Products

What’s Next ? Widget ?

It all started from a very simple idea … put up something nifty in the sidebar of my blog. Of course, it is easy to put up Google adsense, Amazon Omakase, RSS etc … but what about something better, something easier to manage (in my blog) ? Like widgets ?

Since the good old days of Windows Active Desktop, Apple Dashboard, and Yahoo Konfabulator, widgets are really not new stuff. But we now have Vista sidebar gadgets, and after Newsweek declared 2007 is the year of widget, I am sure we will see a lot more about widgets.

However, what really really really caught my eye is the following blog post:

If you were going to invent the portal today, would you?

Just some excerpt …

My point is that all content needs to be loosed in the smallest particles possible (widgetised) – then it will reform itself into valid and relevant units, driven by the consumers of that content. One unspoken issue underlying this is the concept of ‘portal death’.

Check that blog post, check out the concept behind widget and widget sites like widgetbox.com … widget is going to change the Internet and the world again.

Web Idea: What The Duck

It’s not my own web idea, but the whattheduck.net illustrate one web idea that I found very interesting …

  • First the site, pretty much like a “new media”, is run by Aaron Johnson. This site hosts the Comic Strip “What the Duck” (a photographer), and you won’t find it in other traditional newspapers, magazines. In other words, the website is the only media that you can see the strips.
  • However, unlike other comic strip web sites, you can copy, download the strips to your site, blog, forum, newsletter etc. Royalty free, quite a breakthru model.
  • And somehow, each of the strips has no caption / title. Instead, viewers (i.e. site visitors) can send in their suggested caption of the strip as comments (This “tradition” began from strip #49). And Aaron will pick the best one (from his point of view) and apply to the strip. I think it’s a new and novel way to let the site vistors to participate in a comic strip.
  • Then, how Aaron make money ? You can buy all kinds of goods from this site, all with the “What the Duck” logo or theme – T-Shirts, baseball hats, clock, badge etc. etc.

The only complaint I have about this site is … mac.com is really slow.

Anyway, not bad, not bad … I hope you enjoy the strips and that good idea as much as I do.

Our Iceberg Is Melting

No, it is not about the movie An Inconvenient Truth (lower your PC speaker volume before you click the link), but it is a book that talks about Change Management.

It is a very thin book that you can probably finish it in a morning, yet with a very good story / fable (how a coloney of penguins find a new home because their hometown’s iceberg is melting). And yes, the whole idea of the story is about how to manage change in a very solid 8 steps:

  1. Create a sense of urgency to deal with a difficult problem
  2. Put a carefully selected group in charge of guiding the change
  3. Find the sensible vision of a better future
  4. Communicate that vision so others will understand and accept it
  5. Remove as many obstacles to action as is pactical
  6. Create some sort of success quickly
  7. Never let up until the new way of life is firmly established
  8. Ensure that the changes will not be overcome by stubborn, hard-to-die traditions

A very good read and highly recommended !!