---
title: "World of Widgets: Google"
date: 2006-08-02
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2006"
    url: "/tag/2006.md"
---

# World of Widgets: Google

![google gadgets](https://web.archive.org/web/20110829192439im_/http://static.flickr.com/74/204825337_3e78fa03d6_m.jpg)Widgets (aka gadgets, modules) are mini web apps that you can plug in to a webpage or site such as MySpace, or a personalized start page like Netvibes or live.com. Widgets are becoming more and more important on the Web, so I thought I’d spend a few posts looking more closely at them.

Let’s start with [Google widgets](https://web.archive.org/web/20110829192439/http://www.google.com/apis/homepage/), which they used to call modules but are now calling gadgets (curiously, a case where Google has copied Microsoft). Google offers two types of gadgets:

1\) [Desktop plug-ins](https://web.archive.org/web/20110829192439/http://desktop.google.com/plugins/) – for the Google Desktop. Much like Yahoo’s Konfabulator widget platform and Apple Dashboard.

2\) [Personalized Homepage gadgets](https://web.archive.org/web/20110829192439/http://www.google.com/ig/directory). Google has gradually increased the number of widgets in their directory, but there are third party sites that offer a great selection too – e.g. [here](https://web.archive.org/web/20110829192439/http://googlewidgets.net/) and [here](https://web.archive.org/web/20110829192439/http://www.googlemodules.com/).

Google gadgets can also run in [Google Pages](https://web.archive.org/web/20110829192439/http://pages.google.com/), their webpage-editing tool.

To develop gadgets for the Google platform, use the [Google Gadgets API](https://web.archive.org/web/20110829192439/http://www.google.com/apis/homepage/) – which Google claims is “so easy to use that you can develop your first gadget in 5 minutes”. They also say it’s easy to turn existing web content into a gadget.

The main difference between Google’s and Microsoft’s gadgets is that Google takes a web-centric approach, whereas Microsoft gadgets will utilize both desktop and web. I’ll look more closely at Microsoft’s gadgets in my next widgets post.

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/googlegadgets.php))*