Nokia recently introduced a new service called WidSets which enables people to use their widgets on their cell phones. Here’s what Joi Ito had to say in his blog post - WidSets“The Nokia guys showed me WidSets yesterday. It’s a very cool service that allows people to make simple widgets which get sent to your phone and run on your phone. They are similar to OS X widgets and do various things like read RSS feeds, show flickr images for a particular tag, or show a Technorati feed. It’s still in Beta, but seems to work well. It works on Java phones so will work on non-Nokia phones as well.”
I believe that the mobile platform, whether it’s a pure cell phone or some kind of micro PC hybrid, will become the primary platform for widget users. The missing piece in the whole widget space is what I will call “personal widgetcards” which will be created by consumer goods companies and will serve as distributed user accounts. If modern busines is really about establishing and maintaining conversations between businesses and consumers, then widgetcards will be an important point of communication.
For example, most of us have a frequent flyer card and with it a user account at the company’s website. Trying to access our user accounts on the fly currently is both cumbersome and almost not worth the effort. However, if the data that is contained within an user’s account could be repackaged into a mobile widgetcard which could then be stored on one’s cell phone, I think we would begin to see the real power of widgets.
People would begin to store dozens of widgetcards on their cell phones and would begin to use those widgetcards daily. Just think of all the key FOBS you have on your key chain. How much better would key FOBs be if they were widgetcards which you carried on your cell phone?
Currently, most widgets are a bit boring. Take a look at the selection of widgets on Widgetbox, Snipperoo, of WidSets. Many of the current crop widgets are utilities. While these current widgets have generated some impressive buzz within the early adopter techie crowd, I don’t think they will be the catalysts which will get the average consumer using widgets on a daily basis. When I read influential web2.0 commentators discussing widgets I get the impression that they are actually more impressed by the concept of a modular distributed web than they are with the actual widgets themselves. The widget concept is fantastic it’s just that the widgets themselves are lame. See for yourself, go to any of the widget directories listed above and check them out.
However, what if McDonalds, Au Bon Pain, Panera, Starbucks, Barnes & Noble et al came out with a widgetcard which would serve as an user account with prepaid charge card functionality. Users could load up credit on the widgetcard online (or in-store) and then “carry” the widgetcard with them on their cell phones? As mentioned previously, a simple bar code, within the widgetcard, could be the mechanism by which users could use that widget to pay for purchases at the above-listed establishments. Companies would not only be able to gather some very valuable demographic data but they could also run special promotions for widgetcard users. (see my blog post on the Dunkin Donuts and Yahoo! promotion).
I found the excitement surrounding Techmeme’s new feed ads interesting because the same concept could be applied to widgetcards. Each widgetcard could have a rss feed from the company which created the card. Talk about having a valuable conversation with your customers? Do I think companies would pay for this opportunity to reach their customers in a one on one basis? You betcha! They will pay lots of money. Think of these widgetcards as, in essence, CRM software. Instead of the C standing for “customer” substitute the word “consumer.” Consumer Relationship Management software where your consumers double opt-in! That’s the holy grail.
There will soon be thousands of examples where mobile widgetcards are used by consumers worldwide. I encourage widget makers to focus on consumer widgetcards and to stop designing Moon Phase widgets or Clock widgets. The future of widgets is in the consumer marketplace not in techie toys.
