MSN Start & Windows Live Gadgets

MSN Start and Windows Live, which are competitors for Google/ig have jumped ahead of google and are now offering a repository for developers to create XML/javascript based ‘gadgets’!

There are two types of gadgets. A remotely hosted gadget, where a site like MasterWish would create a gadget and make the URL to the gadget’s XML file publicly available; the user then enters the URL and viola! The gadget is added! (after a confirmation) The second type of gadget is the locally hosted gadget, where you can store a gadget on your machine (Windows only). You load the gadget in the same way you do a hosted gadget…There seem to be a few catches with the local gadgets:

• First and foremost, its not web centric…the gadget is on your machine. If you head on over to a friend’s house, that gadget won’t be available to you.
• The local gadgets must be coded as such.
• Windows only

The benefits with the locally hosted gadget? Well, you can do some more advanced stuff with them like messing with your local applications. For example, there are some gadgets out there that manipulate the data from iTunes…the gadgets are pretty sweet. Local gadgets are neat…but I’m not sold on them.

What really throws me for a loop is that Microsoft implemented gadgets before Google…you’d think Google would see this coming. tsk tsk tsk. All the same, I’m going to do some little experiments with gadgets and see what I can come up with.