Hummer Winblad Search Dabble Turns Up...Web Widget; What's Vister?

I'm still trying to get to the bottom of the interest in searching for Hummer Winblad on Technorati. In my search, I learned that Hummer Winblad gave money to "DabbleDB" of Canada -- like $2 million. I also discovered that Hummer Winblad sent $1.5 million to Startup PostApp for an "online widget."

Ok, gimme an f-ing break. An online widget. You know "widget" is an economics term for just some kind of device -- nothing specific -- that's used to show the sale of something as related to matters in microeconomics.

Next.

Well, next I learned that Hummer Winblad really did give money to Post App, and they've got an application I'm going to put to great use at SBS.

What's a Web Widget?

Well according to PostApp, it's "A web widget is a piece of web service-based interactive content that can be dynamically embedded into a web page. For example, a web widget can be a game, a score box displaying a set of statistics, a weather box, an advertising box or any other functionality to be embedded on a web page such as a blog, personal homepage, social networking profile, or auction page. Web widgets, sometimes called gadgets or modules, are increasingly used by web publishers to enhance their web pages, and web service developers are now frequently making their technologies available as web widgets. Many different technologies can be used to develop widgets: HTML, JavaScript, AJAX, Flash, Java Applets, and any web application platform: J2EE, LAMP, Perl, Ruby, etc.

PostApp is creating a marketplace that connects web widget developers with bloggers and other personal publishers. Widget developers include online services seeking widespread widget distribution such as Yahoo! and eBay, as well as small independent widget developers."

Nice.

It fits in with what we're doing with our main products here. Real cool.

Now about that Dabble thing.

It turns out there are two Dabbles -- the one in Canada, and this one.

I like Mary Hodder's better!



But regarding this whole social networking craze, you're probably wondering what's next on the horizon that Hummer Winblad should be investing in. Well, here's "Vister."

..and that's Danah Boyd who's 1/2 of the team who conceived Vister. She's an interesting speaker. How do I know? Because I happened to catch her talk about social networks one day at Cal a few years ago. Her talk was theoretical and a bit racy -- I think deliberately so -- but none the less informative.

I tried to contact her with the idea of exploring how what she was doing could fit with SBS, but she didn't see how and at the time I was dealing with too much with business and family battling cancer to try and take time to show her how. So I set the idea on the shelf.

Jeffrey Heer seems to have more of his teeth sunk into Vister's development. This is he:



And this is a video about Vister. Check it out!