What's a widget?

I was looking again at the Alan Johnson widget I have sitting in the left-column.

It is a widget, but all it is is an image and an extremely simple image at that.

It's given to you as code, so they can change the image on many blogs now (they don't appear to be counting but it's now in the hundreds).

What makes it work is

• the background knowledge and resonance which means that 'alan johnston' and 'gaza' require nothing more — you could take 'reporter' out and it would still work
• the BBC brand — so strong that it works in an enormous number of forms, including this sentence, where it's leaping out
  

• Alan Johnston on the front line in Gaza