They Are Beautiful Coglets

A quick note on two promising widget related releases.

They're Beautiful (They Are!)
The first is the well covered flower widget from They're Beautiful/Jackson Fish Market. The application lets users send a bouquet of flowers to someone via email. The flower designs are striking and each arrangement in one of a kind. However, once you have some flowers you need to water them otherwise they will wilt. Simple, compelling, the interactive functionality missing from the Windorphin fun... and most widgets for that matter.

The second part of the service is the widget itself. It simply let's me show off my flowers on a page. This widget reinforces the interactive nature of the flowers. Now that they are on public display I have a greater incentive to keep them looking great by "watering" them. Simple, compelling... uh, Beautiful anyone?.

Excellent execution of an idea that has much more potential. I am curious to see where they can take this.

Here is the widget:

Coglets
The second item is Cogheads announcement of Coglets. Users can now embed Coghead apps in a page. While not providing the most compelling front end, Coglets are one example of a back end data service that can drive a widget by providing state and interactivity. The video demo is stale, but the idea is compelling. The service is fee based.

There are several example sites, including a presidential race tracking site. This example was incredibly slow when loading the application from Coghead. I assume they are getting a lot of traffic this morning... right? At any rate, the examples I looked at were based on creating a full website with embedded functionality, but the exact same model can be applied to a smaller form factor, like a widget.

Again, a lot of potential, looking forward to seeing what adventures users are taken on with this technology.

Windorphins: when widgets lack a spine

I nearly collided with a colorful sign announcing Windorphins today. It looked like a cross between Tomaguchi and Spore. Friendly amoeba like creatures stared back at me as I tried to make sense of their name. In fact, they are an eBay marketing campaign.

The landing page is a fun tongue in cheek look at Windorphins: 'real' video footage of their discovery, an anatomical look at where they can be found in your body, and of course a lot of links back to eBay.

The fun begins when you make your own. Here is the embeddable widget you end up with:

Make your own Windorph

Windorphins are pure widget silliness. What I like about them is that the Windorphin itself is pure widget. Simple HTML makes it portable to any web page. What I don't like is that they are also pure silliness. A little silliness goes a long way when combined with at least a dash of functionality. Pure silliness remains just that, silly.

I believe most people will have an experience similar to mine. Check out the site, laugh a little at the corny, sort of classic, marketing jokes , make a Windorphin, and move on.











What if...

• There was some functional backbone behind my Windorphin?
• It started to look a little lean if I hadn't been back to eBay in a while?
• I could add more kooky items to it if I bought or sold something on eBay?

That would add another dimension to the Windorphins and amplify the impact of the campaign. I would be more engaged with the technology and hopefully follow an inherent 'call to action' to use eBay. As it stands I had a few minutes of silly fun, spent more time on blogger.com than eBay, and am left uncertain as to what the grand auctioneer was trying to accomplish.

As we are more thoroughly inundated with these 'viral' campaigns based on lightweight widget technology the payoff needs to be greater. Widgets need a spine. While silliness abounds and is fun, Windorphins have not met their potential.