Earlier this week, Techcrunch reported on the Buddywave MySpace browser, a "a stripped down version of Internet Explorer 7, with some additional MySpace-specific functionality added".
Today, Read/Write Web posts about the Songbird music browser, which appears to be "a mixture of a music player and the web browser. Built on top of the open-source Mozilla code base, this desktop application lets you manage your local music collection, search for new music online as well as instantly play any music on blogs and web sites."
Hmmm... so do we want an OU client side app?
Or would it be possible to build a comprehensive OUniversal widget (or maybe a set of smaller, single function widgets (how do I get OU into "widget" or "gadget"?!)) maybe built using the planned Netvibes universal widget API?
As to why the Netvibes announcement is interesting, Techrunch comments: "Once launched, any widget created for Netvibes ... will work on the Vista, Google, Mac and Opera platforms as well. Support for Yahoo Widgets and other platforms will follow soon after."
Universal ways of working already exist in workaround fashion (such as using the various Amnesty widget converters to convert widgets built on one platform to run on another, or Google Universal gadgets that run across the Google Desktop, personalised home page etc.), but this looks like it'll be an altogether cleaner approach.
PS if widgets'n'gadgets are new to you, this post on the Yahoo widgets blog gives a good overview of the whole area and here's a vision of Universal widgets...
Posted by ajh59 at February 22, 2007 01:20 PM