Farewell, HeGe! And hi, friends!

Yep, HeGe will be moving on…

That is what happens to the good guys: first you are participating in something really odd, interesting, and cool in some weird outfit in the shadows of corporate sidelines, and then when that something turns out to be really cool – all of a sudden you find yourself in the heart of something a lot bigger than you would ever have imagined. And then you find your personal self in some really nice corner cubicle with the nice big windows overlooking the SF Bay… 

This is about what happened to HeGe - the nice cubicle in SF - and what is happening to WidSets - growing, growing, and growing – past 3 million registrations now!

So, thank you, HeGe, for your great contribution as one of the inventors and founders of WidSets – without you commitment and the crooked sense of humor we would not be where we are now! And have fun with your new job in SF!

We have been adding quite a many new guys and gals into the ranks over the summer, and now that HeGe will no longer be here to fill the blog, we will have a few others to write and let you know what is going on with WidSets.

And trust me – a lot has been going on during the summer. We launched a SDK for developers, and a guy called Tumppi will be writing a few words about that shortly.  (Tumppi – here is an action point for you! :-P ) We have also added and continue to add some great new content; Gero and his team will be writing about that. Stay tuned!

There is now also a dedicated Widsets for China. Take a look at cn.widsets.com. If you are like me, and do not have Chinese characters in your PC or mobile -  good luck trying to figure what is there :-)  At least the graphics are cool… Our guys there are doing really great work in developing new kinds of content – can barely wait to see some of that in English as well :-)

And by the way – I am also one of the new guys here; joining  the team who runs this outfit in early summer.   It has been really exciting and fun. And what was really funny was to find out, that now for the first time ever my teenage kids seem to appreciate what I do for a living! There really must be something with WidSets!!!

Let’s be in touch!

Ps: please do keep on commenting and sending feedback. We are working day and night to keep on making WidSets fun and cool and useful for you – and that can succeed when you guys keep on feeding us with great ideas, and also sharp comments when deserved! We are here for you – the users!

Farewell, and thanks for all the fish

There hasn't been too many blog postings here during summer - sorry about that - and some people have wondered why.  The root cause for me not blogging here for a while is that I have decided to move to new challenges, and I've been busy making all the arrangements. Having invented WidSets with my friends two years ago, taking it to the market, and making it a success, I decided that it was time for me to move to the next great thing.

No, there's nothing dramatic about this, as I'm continuing working for Nokia, and with communities. The bigger change is that I am moving to San Francisco, so I'm really looking forward to getting a chance to meet all you great guys out there more on a regular basis! And WidSets will naturally continue blogging, which means that in the future you will get to know many people from the WidSets team.

With that, I want to thank everybody for putting up with my postings here at WidSets, and for the great comments! I personally have enjoyed the time here immensely! And my special thanks goes to all of you, who have blogged or written about WidSets. Thank you so much!

Cheers!

WidSets and DW-WORLD: 1 + 1= 6

What do you get when you pair an expert in delivering the Internet to your mobile via widgets and a world-wide news broadcasting network consisting of 4,300 partner broadcast stations and more than 400 institutions from all over the world?

The answer: Six great widgets delivering the latest news from different categories like Politics, Business, World news or Soccer. The DW-WORLD widgets offers full text stories including pictures and are available in six different languages (with more to follow):

• English
• Chinese
• German
• Portugese
• Russian
• Spanish

Get a closer look and choose the language that suits you best here Also watch out for more regionalized content in different languages in the near future! We believe that delivering regional content that matters to people in addition to our numerous Web 2.0 services and worldwide brands is what makes the difference! Is there a service in your language or region that you would like to have as a widget? Why don’t you start right off in our studio and create a widget that delivers your favorite content? Want more? Check out our developer site for help on making more sophisticated widgets using our SDK. Or, tell us what you would like to see in our widget forum or drop a comment to this post.

(Thx, Sebastian)

WidSets included in Nokia 7500 and 7900 prism

It was our dream when creating WidSets, we've worked on this for quite a long time, and now we are getting there. With Nokia unveiling the Prism collection, aimed at style-conscious consumers, WidSets comes for the first time easily available in a mobile phone. Just look for the WidSets logo in the phone, click on it, and the installer gets you started with WidSets, automatically. The word "cool" definitely suffers from inflation, but I'll use it anyway - cool!

This would not have been possible without great co-operation on both sides, and seeing our team working hard on this project, it definitely feels good to see the results. Thx, guys!

I want to finish by just saying "Hi!" to Shaji. When we had the first meeting a long ago, I wasn't sure what was going to happen - but we made it!

WidSets featured on 3 neXt

The great guys at 3 have added WidSets to their new review site for innovative mobile applications, called 3 neXt. The site (available on mobile and pc), reviews and provides links to a selection of the best mobile internet applications and websites.

Getting started is very easy. Just go to the 3 neXt mobile site, where you will find WidSets, click on the link and get WidSets to your phone. Alternatively, go to the 3 neXt web site from your pc and see what's available there, comment and rate the apps, and so on. These are very cool sites!

We are very excited about being featured on the 3 neXt site. Thanks a lot to everybody involved!