Saw today on Richard MacManus’ blog that Windows Live Gadgets Beta launched.  That has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?  Weird thing for me is this, when I think of gadgets, I go to sites like engadget.  And the funny part here?  I’m not alone.  Google search for gadgets shows links mostly to “real world” gadgets.  The only two entries related to “desktop gadgets” belong to Microsoft and Google.  Surprise surprise surprise.  In fact, doing the search again with a -”microsoft gadgets” removes a million links… of 192 million beforehand. 

Like always, I digress.  I just don’t like the dual-use of a techie term like this, as I think it really leads ‘the general public’ astray. 

“Hey, Bob, see the latest gadget I just got”?

“Gee, Frank, what is it?”

“Come now, Bob, take a guess!”

“Hmm.. is it an MP3 player?”

“No, try again.”

“Ok, a new remote control?”

“Not even close.”

“I dunno, Frank, a laser pointer?”

“No, Bob, you retard.  It’s a Mortgage Rate Clock for my desktop!  God you are so dumb sometimes, you think a gadget is a physical device.  Don’t you even keep up with the absolute latest trends, you unbelievable buffoon?  I swear, sometimes you blur the line between ape and man.”

At this point, Bob punches Frank in the face.  Then crushes his iPod.

Back to the topic at hand.  The “Web 2.0 visionaries” up in Redmond are showing off their latest technology with a mashup demo.  In the demo, you can see all of your buddies on a map.  Yup.  Your buddies right there on a map.  Yes.  That’s the whole story.  Oh, well, it does use Ajax.  Hot tip guys: I know where my buddies live!

I think my favorite part is reading this paragraph from one of the Microsoft blogs.  In a section called “What’s the benefit for end users?” the entry contained:

Convenience and confidence. If you’re shopping for flowers for Grandma online, it’s much easier to tell the contacts gadget to give Grandma’s postal address to the florist site than to type in her address each time you visit the site. 240 million Hotmail and Messenger users have already amassed some 14 billion contact records. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could use your contacts for things beyond just Hotmail and Messenger?

Well I am confident that this is NOT about to make Web surfing more convenient (if you’re shopping for flowers for Grandma online, you’re probably going to end up at 1800flowers.com anyway).  How about making some useful services?  Here’s one: give me a simple tool to view my contacts’ schedules in real-time so I can try to make an appointment faster, easier, and better.

While this has impressed a blogger or two, we’ll see how Microsoft’s stock reacts on Monday.