Google Adds Widgets to Homepage

Panaphonix writes "Google announced that their personalized homepage now has an API for developers to add their own modules. Samples are available in this directory."

Comments

Re:This. Is. Evil.

[gstoddart]

Google's use of the word "widget" is Evil. There are some words that shouldn't be redefined, especially by a megacorp.

I've used widget for years - maybe 15. When making a generic description of a generic item, widget is the placeholder word to use.

Well, fortunately for the rest of us, you're not the final arbiter over the usage of the word widget.

According to Webster:

Main Entry: widget
Pronunciation: 'wi-j&t
Function: noun
Etymology: alteration of gadget
1 : GADGET
2 : an unnamed article considered for purposes of hypothetical example

Apple uses the term widgets to define the components in it's dashboard application.

Hello, if you go to you personal page here on Slashdot, you'll find:

This is your User Info page. There are thousands more, but this one is yours. You most likely are not so interested in yourself, and probably would be more interested in the Preferences links you see up top there, where you can customize Slashdot, change your password, or just click pretty widgets to kill time.

Over time widget has come to be a placeholder for actual objects (in examples of economics for example), any gadget, and it has also come to mean "small, componentized pieces of code".

Googles use of the word widget is consistent with currently accepted usage of the word. They haven't arbitrarily redefined it. They haven't even used it in a new context.

Get over it. It's not your word exclusively.