Opera Widgets blog

I know you've all been wondering just what it is we get up to around here. After all, we were supposed to announce the winner of this MacBook Pro on Tuesday. We kept you waiting, but we saved the best surprises for last like an M. Night Shyamalan movie before you knew who he was and that his name meant there was definitely a twist at the end.

We had some consistent winners throughout this competition. Holger Will and johnnysaucepn won several times. johnnysaucepn succeeded in saving our villagers from the widget bandit.

Of course we can't forget the widget bandit himself. Benjamin Joffe seemed an unstoppable force. Frankly, he still is and we won't forget his domination. Week after week, he kept cranking out little bits of Web technology goodness. They were sleek, fast, well-coded, useful, addictive. As a PR guy, I try not to involve myself with concepts my primitive mind cannot comprehend, yet even I could appreciate the skill and craft those widgets displayed. He made me want to create my own. I envied Mr. Joffe.

So I personally expected him to walk away with the MacBook. And yet when the envelope came to me, I opened it and was quite surprised to see a different name. At first, I suspected foul play, bribery and nepotism. But then I remembered that these judges do it all by the book (spreadsheet actually). And so...the winner of the 2006 My Opera Widget Competition:

Grafio for the Artist's Sketchbook.

Grafio, please come down and claim your MacBook. If you want to say a few words, that's cool too.

I want to personally thank all our widget contributors, our winners and ThinkGeek, our official competition sponsor. So go visit them and buy lots of goodies. Everyone that is but Benjamin; he's already got everything they have. It's been a lot of fun, and don't forget that you can still win in our Widget World Cup. Stay tuned for more widget info, competitions and general mayhem.

It seems we have only one submitted widget for this week's ThinkGeek bag of awesomeness. That's no fun.

I know the man is keeping you down. I know the weekly grind has left you just waiting for that first (insert favorite beverage here). But think about releasing the stress by making a widget and getting a prize in return. Right now, if you submit, you've got a 50-50 chance of winning. Why not give it a shot?

ps - that was no pun

pps - even if it was, I would not admit it.

We have our little home setup here at The Gathering - a cozy little area with couches and some sweet demo machines (with PCs running widgets, presentations and a few cool devices). Chaotic sounds of thumping techno music and Counter Strike "Bomb defused" are all over - then here's our booth blaring Opera music.
We've had a lot of really bright and curious people come by interested in prizes, the Opera Browser, jobs at Opera, widgets, standards and just about anything else. Many of the people we've been talking to were the same that showed up to Chaals' presentation on Web standards.
Far away from the chaos downstairs, the auditorium was a nice break. Chaals was able to give his presentation on the importance of Web standards, his involvement with a number of organizations and how important accessibility is (and will continue to be) to the Web. He offered up a number of great examples of uses and even a few "far fetched" ones just to make sure everyone was paying attention. Afterwards, there were a bunch of questions covering a bunch of different topics. How long till it's released? Why does Opera do this?
And as abruptly as this nice little escape began, we're now back in our booth in the midst of this techno / Opera / videogame chaos. Technology is great, aint it?