I made the New York Times! Did I really say *that*?
Last week I gave a series of interviews about the release of Yahoo! Widgets 4.5. This was a huge release for us, offering consumers an entirely new Widget Gallery and introducing powerful developer features including full support for HTML and Flash. I was excited to see the New York Times pick up the story ("Yahoo adds Flash to widget platform" from November 29, 2007), but the quote bearing my name isn’t me at my most eloquent:
"What we’re seeing is authors are wanting to write movies and video, and that’s a new capability that can now add to desktop widgets," Derringer said. A widget can be built that runs assets that already existed in Flash.
"Video can now be run inside of a widget," said Derringer. Full HTML support, meanwhile, provides capabilities like flow layout and more standard control.
"That can now add"?? Not "that can now be added"? I fear that I might actually have said that. Yes, I, the fierce grammarian, really did form that first sentence in a conversation. I think I might even have said that HTML provides "flow" layout. Ack! If I’d heard someone else say such a thing I would have corrected them. But I’m the one who said it. In my dreams, I am requoted, sounding a bit more like myself:
"We’re seeing a powerful trend emerging as authors create Widgets for the Web using video and other rich media. With our newest release, these authors can now extend that great content to the Desktop," Derringer said. A widget can be built that runs assets that already existed in Flash.
"Video can now be run inside of a widget," said Derringer. Full HTML support, meanwhile, provides powerful design capabilities like flowed layout and a standards-based format for creating UI.
Alas, I said what I said and there it is in print. The reporter was perfectly accurate, I’m the one who simply couldn’t talk that day. Good lesson for me, and now I can’t wait for the next release in hopes of a shot at redemption. But, hey, at least my name was spelled right! And in the end, I did still end up in the New York Times. That’s pretty cool.
