Overview
This session will focus on building Web 2.0 community web sites that incorporate the use of widgets.  Widgets provide a way for content and tool publishers to expose functionality and content that can be used in the context of a variety of web sites supporting widgets, gadgets, etc.  Examples include http://www.live.com, http://www.pageflakes.com, and http://www.netvibes.com (which actually provide an Open Widget API that allows their widgets to be consumed by all these sites).  Widgets and gadgets are used by Vista and Mac OS X as well.

What is a Widget?
The first part of the session will examine widgets and Widget API’s, focusing on the Microsoft Gadgets API as supported by ASP.NET AJAX.

AJAX and Widgets
This part of the session will discuss how AJAX patterns and development applies to the development of widgets using the Gadgets API.  I will discuss how to expose web services, browser compatibility, and cross domain access to content and data.

The Power of Widgets
I will discuss potential business applications of widgets and how those relate to the development and marketing of web communities, including how many current widget-based sites are using widgets to expose services to customers in the context that fits the customer best (on an MSN page, Live.com page, etc.).

Example Widget-based Modular Site
I will show an example of a web site supporting the Microsoft Gadget brand of widgets, demonstrating how widget-based content can be exposed for use on the Vista Sidebar as well as http://www.live.com.

What’s next for Widgets
I will discuss what is next for widgets in the following areas:
• Open Widget Specification from the W3C (based on Apple widgets API)
• Widget licensing, security, and paid services
• Potential answers to widget problems of cross domain web service access, hosting, etc.
• Silverlight, XAML, and widgets of the future.

Speaker's Notes

Travis has provided us with a copy of his PowerPoint presentation, Writing Widget-based Web 2.0.