A widget that works

THERE'S more to widgets than harvesting headlines and playing games.

Today, White Fence, an the largest online comparison marketplace for home needs like electricity, gas and other utilities and services, today released it's widget (see the bottom of this page). The purpose is to allow realtor's to add value to their Web sites by being able to quickly answer potential buyers' questions about the cost of living in the area.

That's a pretty hefty task for a technology that evolved primarily to enable people to waste time at work.

The White Fence widget stands as an example of where widgets are going in the future: mega-utilitarian, mega-time saving, mega-functional. They will expand our ability to offer related products to what we're selling. White Fence widget enables realtors to help their customers beyond their personal abilities. In the future, maybe there will be widgets to add that connect to banks home loan information. Colleges could have similar loan widgets. A jeweler could have a widget for restaurants on it's engagement ring page.

The Internet has made our world smaller, expanded the global village, yadda yadda. But it's widgets that are bringing it closer and closer.