Widgets vs Badges

Written on August 16, 2006 by timothypost in webwidgets

Is it a fair distinction to say that widgets generally are scripts which live on a desktop (both online or on one’s PC), while badges are scripts that live within the body of an HTML page?

There continues to be semantic confusion surrounding these terms, not to mention the newer terms such as “gadgets,” “modules,” and “elements.” It would nice great to have some clarity of terminology as these scripting objects become ever more popular.

Do any of you have ideas on how to distinguish between these above-listed terms?

2 Comments - Leave a comment!
  • Just to add to my comment above: we think it is more important to differentiate between different kinds of widget, e.g. the word widget is used to describe snippets of code, OS based applications (Konfabulator/Yahoo Widgets etc) and other code based things. We are using the term 'web widgets' to describe the widgets we deal with, which only exist on web pages.
  • In this fast moving totally open environment I don't think it's worth trying to differentiate between a bunch of terms that are really being used interchangably.
    Widget, gadget, module, snippet, badge, plug-in. There may be some technical differentiations to be made, but I don't think it's worth making them. From the end user's perspective (and does anyone else matter?), they are all things that you can add to your web page. End of story. There may be issues here for developers, but I think the more pertinent questions are about which platforms are universal, how to get these things distributed, what about security, things like that.
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