Why Yahoo! bought Pixoria

Loosely coupled

Acquiring Konfabulator lets Yahoo! feed live information directly to the desktop, bypassing the browser. A lot of people have been misled by Pixoria's use of the name 'widgets' for the tiny applets created and run using its Konfabulator tool (now in the wake of the acquisition to be renamed Yahoo! Widgets, which is sure to perpetuate the misconception). Just like the early days of JavaScript which Konfabulator uses most of the widgets available today are useless eye candy, offering functionality that appeals only to witless geeks. But put this technology together with people who understand the true power of client-side JavaScript the designers of OddPost, for example, which Yahoo! acquired last summer and you have the potential to create something of huge import.

Here are the ingredients that I believe give Yahoo! Widgets (formerly known as Konfabulator) such huge potential: