Of love, life and the internet

Wikipedia - A widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML -based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation

Righto. umm.. err - so what was that again? Basically you know the ‘BBC’ or ‘joke of the day’ box you see on igoogle - that’s an example of a widget. So what’s so cool about that again? Technical details aside - here’s what’s so revolutionary about widgets.

Media Variety - A widget can take just about any media type… text, pics, video, audio, flash based games. Which reminds me of one of my favourite widgets - super mario (Yes! you can actually play right here!)

800K installs of this widget and growing

Omnipresence - It can go anywhere and everywhere. You don’t have to code again… and it’s got the poetic beauty of of drag and drop. Imagine you have this brand new video you want to show the world. You put it up on your website and you wait for people to come and see it. AAh…. what if people could take a copy of the video with them and deposit it all over the internet… on facebook, on their blog, on rediff, on in.com … etc - check out this radio player

Now - you’ve never heard of this station before… but at one glance I’ve already found 150K people who have installed music widgets like this.

Monetisation Don’t wait for those eyeballs on your site. Embed that advertisement in your widget. Whatever the topic, whereever you are, let the long tail take your widget for a ride. Instead pumping in PPC dollars to pull visitors… your widget will get the impressions and clicks.

Here’s a widget for my blog. Click on ‘Get Widget’ and take it everywhere with you.. You can probably see the ad in between

Measurement Analytics aren’t too far behind… data on number of installs, views, demographics/ geographies… you’ll know whether your campaign is hitting home or not.

So - if you’ve read down till here then congratulations. You’ve completed Widget 101. Now the sales pitch

Gaboli helps Indian content publishers, advertisers and enterprises get more bang for their buck by widget creation, distribution, monetisation and measurement. If any of the above interests you - we’d be glad to help you widgetise your assets.

(PS - the blog took 2 days cause i kept playing the mario game in between.
PPS - i just made up the phrase ‘widgetise your assets’.. sounds quite cool doesn’t it?)

Not one to fill out diaries - what the heck! I’m not one to generally crack bad jokes either.

11:30 pm - finished packing, ready for 6:45a.m. flight to Mumbai

1:00 am - can’t seem to put down ‘bringing down the house’, fascinating book on card counters in Vegas.. better get some shut eye

4:00 am - StumbleUpon the bathroom, geyser on, snooze for 7 mins as water heats

5:20 am - cab is twenty mins late. cab service owner Sardarji has reached home on his scooter and we all wait for the cab that’s supposedly been parked outside the gate for 45 mins. driver Singhji finally arrives, he rubs his eyes while asking  “are you late?”…(£$%^ no I generally wake up angry and cool down by lunch every day!)

7:30 am - all women crew on Indigo. Pilot, co-pilot, air hostesses.. feel extra sensitive to take-0ff, turbulence, landing as well as a small sense of pride on the progress of women in India. quickly distracted by the bhindi sandwiches and chocolate brownies packed by Mummy. book’s engrossing… i’m convinced i was born to gamble

8:45 am - blast of mumbai as i leave the plane… reminiscint of Gregory David Robert’s page 2 description of the smell of Mumbai in Shantaram. 2 hours to go for meeting.. killing time at the airport. the brand new ‘free internet’ machines don’t seem to be connected to the internet. quick survery of the conveyor belts - there are 4 suitcases for every peti of Alphonso mangoes that morning. took a shot and opened laptop to check for free (read unsecured) WiFi.. shot went to a simple catch to silly point.

10:00 am - first auto wallah asks for rs. 300… go looking for the pre pay stand.. apparently no longer exists in mumbai airport. second guy says rs. 200.. third guy seems meek enough so bully him into meter rate.. reach for rs. 51 and tip him rs 9 since his sorry face said “i was going to make a killing by charging triple the fare.. please help!”

3:00 pm - excellent workshop on the legal social network. we know the exact UI.. but where’re we going to find the half Ram Jethmalani half Bill Gates half Mahesh Murthy? (maths mein thora haath tight hai)… usual banter around facebook vs twitter. how facebook UI is still not as good as the previous one and how they may go bankrupt. how tumblr may have cracked the gap between the pull of micro-bloggin vs the intensity of full articles. good humoured sexist jokes about the morning flight. shocked a Canadian intern, freshly arrived in India, by discovering i was born in the same place her folks are from (small mining town.. middle of Ontario)

5:17 pm - just learnt why most of the cabs in mumbai have names of the areas in large bold letters on the back window. it relates to the old licensing regimes where they were only allowed to take fares from their registered area ‘Ghatkopar’ ‘Thane’ etc etc

5:30 pm - Widget distribution and UGC for celebrities… we’ll do a prototype for you… after all we’re faster, better and cheaper and have a crazy sense of humour too!

8:30 pm - demo of OneSchool to alumni council of a premier bschool… “love it.. never seen anything like it”… BUT…. can’t you give it for free?

9:30 pm - just in time for ladies night at firangi paani.. friend from ISB is there - she tries to get two free beers instead of one - always worth a try. big gossip update.. but sworn to secrecy yet again, Deccan Chargers smoothly sailing against Delhi Daredevils till last 3 overs where they throw it away… conversation back to scanning the room, judging anorexic college kids, re-living campus moments from 4 years ago..

12:00 - hit the sack at friends place..

I’m still too fresh into this game to be cribbing. So I won’t mention the 4 attempts it takes for each mobile phone call or the 7th reminder to the lawyer for a second draft of the big contract we signed or the 3rd reminder for the orkut app to be uploaded or the 4th reminder to the customer for the FTP access to their site for SEO.. or the frustration of losing an almost closed deal by personal agendas of two random branding consultants… missed calls… no replies.. too much salt..

maybe next time i’ll unleash