What is a Widget Factory

What is a widget factory? Is it an actual factory that produces widgets for the business industry? Read below to learn more about widgets and what a widget factory is.

The term widget is a general name for a manufactured object. Economics frequently uses the term to describe an unknown product with universal appeal. More recently, widgets refer to small programs on a computer that are easily accessible or sometimes constantly running on a computer's desktop, ready to respond to the user at a moment's notice. For users running Windows Vista, Microsoft calls these "gadgets," and may include things like a clock, sticky notes, or other programs running in the sidebar. Some widgets are available for mobile devices like PDA/Small computers and cell phones.

For the web, widgets are small applets that can run from a website and operate just like those running on a desktop: the program waits for a user to enter information so that it can go to work. On Yahoo's main page, there are six Widgets that wait for you to Mouse over them so they can drop down and give you data like the weather or your newest email.

Google uses widgets to run Google Desktop. They call the widgets "portlets" because they provide portals to the web-based programs like Google Earth and Google Documents. Apple uses widgets in their Dashboard while any KDE desktop environment houses Plasmoids for the workspaces in Ubuntu and similar operating systems.

Because widgets became popular for use on the web in the mid-2000's, the World Wide Web Consortium created the Widget 1.0 standard, which operates the same when they created the HTML 1.0 standard.

A widget factory can be part of a marketing campaign. Once you've created a widget for whatever you are promoting, Widget Factory helps you market it virally. This means it will distribute your code to social networks and different blog sites (over 30 total). The code you create can also be embedded into other websites, and your own website, so potential customers can use it. You can offer the widget for download and install anytime.

The Widget Factory keeps track of what websites use your widgets, how many users install it, and how often someone clicks on any links within the widget. You can also see where in the world computer users are installing or using it the most. There is a lot of data that The Widget Factory can provide to help you in your viral marketing campaign.

There are a couple of programs to use if you are interested in making widgets. As of this writing, IBM has a program called IBM Lotus Widget Factory. This program allows you create a widget and distribute with the IBM Mashup center. You can use the Lotus Widget Factory to create applets for the Web or for use on a computer's desktop. The program is still in development and uses different builders for a complete applet. For additional information, go to IBM.

For an open source program to create widgets, you can download the Gtk+ Widget Factory. The program is free, but is still in very early development. The website is just as new, so if you are interested, you can bookmark Gtk+ Widget Factory to continue to monitor the site for updates. The programs let users easily setup a widget and create the applet in a short amount of time. There is an older version of the program available, but it is unstable on the newer Mac operating systems and Windows Vista.

Lastly, if you create widget after widget for the web or desktop, then you can be considered a widget factory because you are churning out applets and tiny programs quickly and efficiently.

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