Web 2.0 Case Study - Apple Dashboard Widgets - Beyond The Browser

[Gerald Bauer <gerald.bauer@mac.com>]

Hello,

>There are lots of ways to take that.  But everytime 
>someone says the web is the new operating system, 
>I cringe a bit.  MARCA put Netscape on the ropes 
>with that approach.  Web 2.0 smells of that same 
>hype.  The web is what it has always been: computers 
>sending each other email a bit more conveniently 
>than the old message boards did.
>
>  
>
     Web 2.0 doesn't claim to be a new operating system. Web 2.0 claims 
to be the new and most popular platform levaraging open web technologies 
such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, RSS, XMLHttpRequest and so on. A great 
case-study and run-away success story are web widgets introduced by 
Apple and branded as Dashboard Widgets.

     If I may quote from my Van2 posting titled "Beyond the Browser: 
HTML5 Widgets Taking Off - 1001 Dashboard Widgets Available":

   Apple (*) reports that more than a thousand Dashboard Widgets are now 
available.

  What are Dashboard Widgets?

  Dashboard Widgets are mini desktop apps running outside the browser 
build using web technology such as HTML5 (including the canvas tag), 
JavaScript, CSS, XmlHttpRequest and so on.

  Find out more @ http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard and 
http://developer.apple.com/macosx/dashboard.html

  - Gerald

(*) Disclosure: I work for Apple Canada.

PS: Note, that there are already free and even open source alternatives 
to Apple Dashboard Widgets such as Yahoo!
Widgets (formerly Konfabulator) or Gnome gDesklets or KDE SuperKaramaba.

________________________________________________________________________
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Vancouver XML Association (VanX) - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vanx