MuseStorm has created a lot of buzz in the past couple of weeks with its much linked tutorial on How to Create an Ajax Homepage and its web site that allows users to customize pre-made widgets, then add them to their site using a few lines of code.  I spoke to MuseStorm co-founder Ori Soen by telephone this morning and he gave me an overview of  company vision which goes far beyond widgets. 

Right now, MuseStorm aggregates content from various Web sources (APIs) and serves data to applications. On the client-side, it  provides modules that free the developer from dealing with APIs, Web services, data manipulation and most client-side programming.

MuseStorm widgets allow blogs and web site owners to easily integrate data from search engines, photo sharing services, EBay, Amazon, YouTube and others into their Web pages with no programming required.  Web developers can use MuseStorm’s components and service to add dynamic data to their applications with minimal programming, in a variety of development environments.

As more, and more valuable, web-delivered services are developed and deployed in the future, Ori foresees the demand for a middle layer of advanced data management services to function as a “gateway” for customers on both sides of the server-client divide.  For proprietary reasons, he is reluctant to name the specific services right now but he did share some of them with me and I think they are solid and have a lot potential.  Says he:

It is no secret that the web is emerging as a service delivery platform, not simply a collection of static web pages.  Right now, API providers are doing everything themselves.  We think that a year from now, maybe a little bit more, these application providers are going to want to add various kinds of business management functionality and metrics to their offerings.  That would require a lot of programming and platform- building that is extraneous to their core business.  Long term, we see ourselves becoming that middle layer.  If you’re an application or data provider, you can plug-in to MuseStorm and we can provide all kinds of valuable services to help you manage and run your business.  At the same time, we are making it easy for users and developers to add dynamic functionality to their projects.

My impression is that MuseStorm’s plans to add advanced data services on top of its aggregation and distribution technology looks like an attractive business model.

Cross-posted from my other site Practical Widgets.

Nokia has quietly launched  a new venture called WidSets within Nokia Ventures Organization, its business incubation unit, with the goal of bringing the joy of widgets to a million registered mobile users by the end of the year.

A company spokesman said Nokia was looking to claim the same kind of mind share in the mobile world that Yahoo  widgets have in the web.  No word on how the company plans to monetize its entry into mobile widgettry but, for now, it is happy to simply spread the gospel and build a giant user base.   

WidSets work across all platforms and to have a very short development cycle so that refinements can made quickly. The service was launched on June 6 and already got its first expansion at the end of the month that included several new key features: two-way functionality, more to read from the feeds, audio alarms, skin editor for widget creation, and better information from the system widget.