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Google Gadgets Come to You

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the googleverse-is-growing dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo is reporting the release of "Google Gadgets", 1,220 dynamic applications for use on your web pages, without needing to connect to Google. 'Google Gadgets range from a miniature look-up for Google Maps or Google Calendar to independent applications ranging from financial information to sports to communication tools and jokes, horoscopes or geometric puzzle game Tetris.'"

4 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Sorry, but.. by AltGrendel · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... I love the irony of Yahoo reporting this.

    --
    The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination

    - Douglas Adams

    1. Re:Sorry, but.. by jwest · · Score: 5, Informative

      See how the first words of the article are "SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)" ? The story comes from the Reuters wire service. Yahoo is just passing it along... .

      This submission should have read "Reuters is reporting the release of 'Google Gadgets'".

  2. Belgium vs. Google exemplified by BeanBunny · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not that I agree with the Belgian government, but this makes it easy to see why they don't want Google to display their news. If this story gets put up like this on a popular edited Web site like Slashdot, it would appear to be safe to assume that many people believe that Google News, Yahoo! News, and MSN news are all authoring their own stories.

  3. I don't like it by Mori+Chu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm sorry, but haven't we already seen this in several different incarnations before? Microsoft's "Active Desktop" in Win98. Konfabulator. Apple's Dashboard.

    What is this obsession with "widgets", "applets", and "gadgets"? They inevitably end up doing the exact same boring things: weather, sports scores, stocks, dictionary, and maybe a little game. Great. The world of computing has changed forever.

    These things are often bloated little programs because they have to run in JavaScript or some other awful language. They never have consistent UIs, so users can't learn many patterns from using one that they can apply to another. Also, it looks like Google doesn't retain any quality control over who can submit "gadgets", so I'm sure it's bound to be abused by people who want to make malware.

    This is a prime example of a "me, too" project, and I fail to see how Google's done it any better than the predecessors. At least with Gmail and Google Maps they innovated those applications compared to what came before. And how does this make Google any money whatsoever? Will they put ads in the gadgets? Why should any stockholder be pleased that Google developers are wasting their time on "gadgets"?

    Thumbs down, Google. I am not impressed.