Google has made its desktop widgets available for insertion in Web pages. Stand by for a mixture of more cluttered and more useful sites.

We're entering an era of widgets. People have taken to building Web pages by piecing together chunks of functional code that come from all over. If you're interested in adding widgets to your pages, though, there are at the moment only a few good directors to grab them from. One of them is Widgetbox(http://www.widgetbox.com/), and now there's Google, which has made it possible for widgets written for its own Google Desktop application to be installed in your own Web pages.

http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=open

It can be pointed out that Google's widgets use JavaScript, which is blocked on many social network sites (such as MySpace). However, people who run their own blogs or sites should not have a problem using the widgets. MySpace and other social network users should check out the SpringBox(http://www.thespringbox.com/), MySpace's own entry into the widget space. Its widgets can be embedded almost anywhere.

I imagine it's just a matter of time until Yahoo figures out how to make its excellent Yahoo Widgets(http://widgets.yahoo.com/) gizmos insertable into Web pages.

Be prepared for a lot of cluttered, widget-drunk Web pages. On the other hand, there are very good and reasonable uses for widgets on business sites: maps with traffic information, shipping cost calculators, store cams, live chat windows and so on. Widgets can make Web pages both more useful and more cluttered. We're going to see both.

What's new:
Microsoft has confirmed that it plans to launch music software and players, under a brand called Zune.

Confirming weeks of rumors, Microsoft said it will launch music software and players under the Zune brand, though the software maker left plenty unsaid in its confirmation.

So what's Zune:
Zune is the name of the project, the brand, and the device.The first Zune device will be launched this year, with more devices to come in 2007.
The Zune brand encompasses not only the device, but the software that will drive it, as well as a music, movie, and media service the Zune device family will use for acquiring, sharing, and discovery of said media. Music will be the first angle of service that is launched, "connected entertainment" being the ultimate goal.

The Zune media device will be drive-based, and have WiFi.The Zune brand is intended to be an entirely vertically integrated end-to-end solution, not unlike the iPod / iTunes / iTunes Music Store triumvirate. Ofcourse you will not be able to use your Zune player with Napster or Vongo.This will be an entirely new system. Microsoft will continue to support and develop for their PlaysForSure initiative.Zune is under Microsoft's new Entertainment & Devices Division.

Bottom line:
The software giant's new stab at the digital music market is just the latest in a long line of efforts by a range of companies to challenge Apple's dominance with the iPod and iTunes. With products not due till later this year, this challenge remains a largely hypothetical one.