The Next Small Thing [BusinessWeek]

 Another widget-mania snapshot, including a "very brief history of the web" -- from browsing to searching and now sharing (via widgets).

There's a land grab under way in Silicon Valley. Not in real land (even in Tech Town, home sales are sagging), but on the Web. What's fueling the frenzy is something that couldn't sound more prosaic: widgets.
In the Web world, widgets are modules of software that people can drag and drop onto the personal page of their social network or onto a blog. There, widgets typically look like a little window or box, packing a bit of the functionality that you would get with a stand-alone Web site or software package. The result can be as mundane as the WeatherBug, or a YouTube clip of your favorite video of a bulldog riding a skateboard, or your wish list from online jewelry retailer Blue Nile (NILE ).

The Next Small Thing