Wave of Widgets Spreads on the Web - washingtonpost.com

Interesting snapshot

Now a young generation of online-ad creators are pushing a newer idea: putting a brand on a mini-site so fun or useful -- a video game or a spruced-up calculator or a live sports update -- that people download it, paste it on their personal blogs or social networking sites, use it again and again and share it with friends.

It's called a widget, an old word for a 21st-century product. And it's what they make at an expanding roster of companies that locally includes Freewebs of Silver Spring and Clearspring Technologies of Arlington -- start-ups founded in the past two years.

Source: Wave of Widgets Spreads on the Web - washingtonpost.com