What is a Web Widget?

What is a "web widget"? According to Wikipedia:

A Web Widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation.

Usually, web widgets are chunks of HTML code that you plug into a web page. Examples include:

HTML code that displays a picture on your MySpace profile.
HTML code that embeds a YouTube video in one of your blog entries.
HTML code that embeds a portion of your calendar on your personal web site.

You may question the significance of web widgets. The concept of chunks of reusable HTML code doesn't seem particularly revolutionary at first glance. However, for reasons that I'll explore in my next entry, widgets have become very important on the web.

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Why Spreadsheets Suck for Prioritizing

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5 Ways Companies Make Product Decisions

In the last blog entry, we reviewed the four problems that companies face, or are trying to overcome, as they make product decisions . Now we'll look at the ways that most companies make their product decisions. Companies that develop, market, and sell products and solutions make strategic and ongoing tactical decisions. They decide what features to include in their products, what messages they will use to communicate the value of their products, what marketing tactics they will use, what prospective customers they will target, and many day-to-day choices. Whether or not these decisions are deliberate or ad hoc, most companies use some combination of the following ways of making product decisions. (A downloadable "map" that summarizes the product decision landscape is included at the end of this article.) Customer Wants Product decisions based on feature requests, focus groups, and what prospects and customers say they want. Companies are selling products to ...

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