Google Gadgetizing the Web

Google Gadgets was the topic of discussion for Jeff Huber, VP of Engineering, at Google in a presentation at the Web 2.0 Summit. Jeff explained that gadgets are representative of the programmable web. Gadgets are being created using rss, html, flash, and css and that gadgets are open, easy, mashable, packable, portable, and embeddable. He went on to say that gadgets serve to disaggregate the web and are socially distributed.

There are 20,000 gadgets on over 100,000 sites and a billion are served each week via syndication. There are also gadgets being embedded in gadgets eg. Google Maps. According to Huber, "what rss did for content, gadgets are doing for apps. It is the power of the open platform and open distribution system that is responsible for growing gadgets versus as a company trying to do this. It is an open ecosystem that is democratic and self-sustaining. The platform is fast, open, and easy. The web is the platform."