Protein^®

I've about had my fill of widgets for widgets sake. Most social apps have embeddable widgets (or digital midgets) which people embed on their sites, (mostly blogs) and for the most part I don't believe they deliver any value. Sorry.

I removed all the widgets bar Delicious and Dopplr (which some readers won't see) from this blog quite a while back. I bet no one noticed. Delicious and Dopplr, I believe, add some value. The others are all fluff which simply slow down the loading times. Having my Twitter on here benefits no one accept those who follow me and those people do that on Twitter, not on my blog, for everyone else it's like hearing half a conversation. Playlists, photos and reading lists again don't really seem to be that interesting.  I think if you like what someone listens to, then you go to their Last Fm or iLike page from time to time, you listen to their Muxtapes or whatever. If we are Flickr buddies then I'll have an RSS of your feed or I'll go to your Flickr page. Looking at pictures that are half an inch across and display what you've chosen to show aren't what I necessarily want to see. And does a My Blog Log badge really provide any interest? No.

I have explored all these little guys and found very very few to actually be interesting or of any use. We all want these little toys that make us feel clever so desperately that we have lowered the level of actual usefulness to the owner / visitor.

Products being displayed on a blog that someone likes; books, music, films almost feels like product syndication. Is this the new advertising? It's starting to feel like that. Yes, pushing content around is a key idea for the future of the web and tailored delivery is very important. Perhaps I'm bored and simply want the next phase.

Could this be widgets
on your site showing me what we have in common in relation to services
we're both signed into, not simply what you like / use? Who knows. I know I don't need to see what you've just played on iTunes. I want to see that in iTunes, the place where I listen and choose what to listen to.

I'm just done with widgets which deliver precious little and slow down sites unnecessarily.

Choose your widgets wisely. Using something for the sake of it usually means you shouldn't be using it.

Full disclosure: I'm designing a suite of widgets for a client. This could be why I've been over-thinking this to death! And why I'm so focused on something that is useful before it is pretty. But then, that matters doesn't it.