Widgets are the battering ram for social networking sandcastles

Ross Mayfield says Widgets are the battering ram for social networking sandcastles

But the next YouTube wont be video, and stuff comes from all angles when users are empowered to paste Javascript.  Smaller players will make this even easier, with wizards to add widgets.  And the blogosphere from which all this independently froths will keep driving the widget economy.

This is the walled garden under siege by gophers.  No, not those gophers, but the ones that tunnel in a thousand directions and drive Bill Murray nuts. People will discover new services wherever the traffic and time is. Some services may overlay social networking as a service, like MyBlogLog does with a degree of execution. Attention follows. Value shifts to networks that provide both the right attention, openness and composition. My bet is a derivative of blogs.

Widgets are the explosive charges laid under the walled gardens. We are the sappers, tunnelling under their ramparts in the dead of night. They lower listening devices, trying to track our activities, but they know that sooner or later their ramparts will be breached. We will rush in. And we will break the walls down and carry the stones away to build our houses.  (Phew, metaphor overload alert)

I don't think the shift will be to a derivative of blogs, or to any 'network' that is recognisable - but logically the outcome will be to an array of open platforms that are networked together by way of widgets. We will choose the platform that fits with what we want to do. The key factor will be that the platforms that work will facilitate our use of widgets rather than control our use of widgets as they do now.

Platforms such as Netvibes and Yourminis hint at what may be to come, though these first generation spaces are totally controlling in what they will admit. They understand that they have to push stuff out as well - but they don't yet understand that they have to let stuff in. This will come soon.

[Thanks to Marc Canter for the Ross Mayfield link and for link love. He's right on the button too. As soon as I find out how to embed Snipperoo into PeopleAggregator I'll be bigging it up!]

Comments

[TareX]

Sorry guys plz remove my podcast comment. It was directed at Androidguys.com and I had two another tabs opened... sorry.

[TareX]

guys I'm a huge fan of the site, but I was listening to the lastest podcast and it kinda sucked.

1) The guy asking the questions was ok, but the other one answering the questions was like "too cool to talk". We don't need that. So you'd be talking about a new feature seen on the videos, then go quiet for a while waiting for him to comment... he doesn't.... then you go "what do you think of that?".... then he goes "yeah it was cool". Oh my God. It kept happening over and over again.

2) Why rush in a podcast before seeing all the videos? Why rush in the podcast before you've got the chance to properly contemplate on what u've seen already?

3) iPhone comparison? Is that the 1st thing you're worried from? The only thing they have in common was a fast touchscreen UI. Other than that, with the 3 desktops, webkit magnifier...etc, it was total brand new innovation. The iPhone 2.0 still opens to a menu.

plz guys do a better job next time this one was boring as hell compared to the amount of information Googled spilled out on Android. And if someone feels he's too cool to talk, then maybe someone else who's a real fan of Android could be more enthusiastic about the topic.

[Ivan]

Our last T-shirts said 'Widgets are the bumper stickers of the internet' and I often get a Whaaa? from people. I think the next one will say 'Widgets are the battering ram for social networking sandcastles' just to see what sort of response that gets ...