Whatever the frogans you make or browse, it’s always going to be a frogans. You can be sure of that because Frogans technology development has always been guided by a set of fundamental principals, self-imposed by STG Interactive. The aim of these principals is to help assure a high level of user-friendliness and usability in a frogans, whatever the frogans that frogans may be.

In a sense, Frogans technology is open on one end, and closed on the other. It’s open with respect to the use of FSDL. Under the FSDL perpetual license it will always be free to use for creating frogans, and even for creating frogans authoring tools. If a software company decides to create the equivalent of Dreamweaver for frogans, that’s fine. There’s no obligation to STG Interactive.

On the other hand, if someone wants to make an alternative to the Frogans Player – say one that accepts larger images, or can detect the date and time on your system – forget it. Why? Because frogans don’t do that.

I can’t say it enough: Frogans are not widgets. I should add: Widgets are not frogans. Oh no. They should be so lucky.

Here’s a short list of annoying things that will tell you that something is not a frogans:

• If it doesn’t have a frogans address, then it’s not a frogans.
• If it opens up without you intending it to, then it’s not a frogans.
• If you can’t rescale it immediately to the size you like, or hide it, then it’s not a frogans.
• If it slows down the performance of your computer, then it’s not a frogans.
• If it doesn’t function and display identically regardless of your operating system, then it’s not a frogans.
• If it animates without your input, then it’s not a frogans.
• If it passes behind another application, or application window, then it’s not a frogans.
• If it downloads to your hard disk, then it’s not a frogans.

And here’s a list of things that will annoy your computer that a frogans won’t do:

• If it opens up an application unexpectedly, then it’s not a frogans.
• If it contains HTML, JavaScript or Flash, then it’s not a frogans.
• If it interferes with the functioning of other applications, then it’s not a frogans.
• If it depends on the functioning of software other than the Frogans Player, then it’s not a frogans.
• If it puts a wiggle in your walk, then it could be frogans, or it could be what you had with your cereal this morning.

Before investing time, energy and maybe money into developing a frogans, you might look for comparable models existing on the Web. And you’re going to look at Web widgets.

(You might look at desktop widgets also, but I’m not going to discuss them here. While they may look more like frogans, they’re even less interactive than Web widgets. Functionally they have less in common with frogans.)

Web widgets are small; frogans are small. You might get your feet wet in the Frogansphere authoring a frogans based on a Facebook widget model (for example).

Above and Beyond the Web

Widgets, like those you see on Facebook, are presented within Web pages, physically and contextually. Web widget visibility is subject to Web browsing behavior, since they are available only as long as the end-user has their page on screen.

Imagine that widgets are on pages in a magazine. Close the magazine – no more widget. Frogans are more like (browsable) pictures on a wall.

So, instead of putting a widget on my Facebook profile page, I could put in a link to a frogans, which can be browsed on the frogans layer at the same time as my profile on the Web. If the end-user goes to another page, or closes their browser altogether, they can still continue to navigate that frogans (up there on the wall).

And the same frogans can be accessed from any kind of Web page, not just a Social Web platform. So, you know that you don’t need to cater to only the 18 – 35 crowd.

More than social

Widgets not made for the Social Web are few and far between. Why is this? It’s because of the Social Web’s viral nature. Widgets are meant to be installed on a maximum number of pages, often by the grace of their fad appeal (I think of them as being pseudo-ads disguised as toys). Rather than pay for their placement like real ads, they proliferate by being fun. Where else but on the Social Web can this idea work?

While a frogans might function very well within a social context, it doesn’t necessarily have to be fun and superficial to get traffic. Frogans have that magic ingredient of persistence which means that they don’t have to play the same game that Widgets, imprisoned in Web pages, must do.

Where to go from here

Now you know that 1) isn’t doomed to being a pure phenomenon of the Social Web, and 2) is persistent beyond the confines of your Web browser. So much for models that don’t apply; what about those that do?

The key to determining a use for a frogans lies in how you tap the strength of its persistence. A successful frogans hangs out on your desktop, being all at once informative, decorative and captivating.

Maybe it’s a slideshow of the greatest National Park photos, containing links for all sorts of information on the subject like the latest news and upcoming events – all this within the same frogans.

Maybe it’s a magazine cover on its frogans home slide, with excerpts from the issue on the inside, complete with links to other frogans (or to Web pages) for supplemental information. At any rate, you think it’s a cool mag, and you like seeing it’s cover on your desktop.

Or maybe it’s your personal frogans for your friends, be they the ones you’ve met in person, or on MySpace. Maybe this is how the Social Frogansphere will operate.

The common thread here is in the end-user’s acceptance of a frogans as something with enough personal relevance and utility to merit an extended stay on their desktop. It’s kind of like that t-shirt sporting the logo of you favorite beer that you wear at barbecues. Or was that a tattoo?

A suggestion

Base your frogans on something people can identify with. It’s kind of a funny idea, but while you can express yourself through your frogans, the end-user also expresses his or herself when they decorate their desktop with it.

Like I’ve said before, despite several visual and functional similarities, frogans and widgets are not the same thing. I like to imply that we live in a happy universe where frogans and widgets can peacefully coexist. Like Rodney King said, “Can’t we all… just… get along?”

Well, wouldn’t that be nice. But can you really, really trust a widget?

According to the Q3 2007 Web Security Trends Report from the Finjan Malicious Code Research Center (MCRC), you can never be too sure if a widget is as cute and cuddly on the inside as it is on the outside:

“Our findings suggest that new attacks that exploit the insecurities of widgets and gadgets are imminent, and that a revised security model should be explored in order to keep users protected from such attacks.
All types of widget environments (OS, 3rd party applications, and web widgets) were found to be plagued with inadequate security models that allowed malicious widgets to run.”

What? Next, they’re going to tell us not to let them get wet; nor to feed them after midnight!

It’s not as if the writing wasn’t already on the wall. All these proliferating mini-apps, cruising the Info-way to and from your computer, often accessing your system resources and running JavaScript of unbeknown intent. Yikes!

Among other things, the MCRC suggests that organizations limit the internal use of widgets, and even go so far as blocking the downloading widget and gadget file types at corporate network gateways.

Is there any hope for those of us wanting an interactive, online desktop pal without fearing that it might stab us in the back?

Frogans, like widgets, have a knack for being cute and cuddly and for displaying content in a small, unobtrusive format. (For a look at their major differences, see “Frogans vs.Widgets”.)

However, in Frogans Technology development, and apparently unlike with widget engines, end-user security has been a major consideration from the start. While not impossible, a malicious attack from a frogans, is really, really improbable. Here are a few reasons why:

• FSDL (Frogans Slide Description Language) – Written in XML this is the only language in which a frogans can be authored. No Flash, no JavaScript. FSDL provides no references to end-user system resources.
• No disc cache – Frogans slides are loaded into active memory only (and they don’t take up very much of that) – never onto your hard drive.
• Image and FSDL parsing – Here the Frogans Player trades off a bit of speed for iron-clad parsing security.(Given the size limitation requirements for frogans resources, this is a minimal speed issue). The Frogans Player simply rejects corrupt files and corrupt images.
• Fonts – The FSDL specifications (v.3.0) permit only certain typographic fonts to be used in a frogans slide. These fonts are integrated into the Frogans Player which has exclusive access to them. Principally implemented as an access and compatibility feature this is also an insurance against corrupted fonts which could eventually be used in an exploit attempt.
• The frogans address – Each frogans publisher on the Main Frogans Network obtains their frogans address at frogans.com and agrees to the terms therein. This allows STG Interactive to suspend a frogans address (and consequently the frogans concerned) should an FSDL document or an image at that address be used in an attempt to exploit a possible Frogans Player security flaw.
  Moreover, frogans addresses are secured by means of digital signatures.
• We encourage the developer community to go looking for any security flaws they can find in the Frogans Player. Anybody who informs us of one will be cited the release notes of patched Frogans Player upgrades. What more could you ask for? A free frogans address with a cool name like “frogans*DemonHacker”? We’re open to suggestions on that front.
• All the above points apply to all three of the principal platforms for Internet end-users. Linux users won’t be left to fall by the wayside. Mac OS X users won’t be out in the cold. Windows users won’t be left blowing in the wind.

We’re pretty sure that Frogans Technology is going to be a hit in corporate environments because of its clear advantages in terms of security, and what’s good enough for them should well do for the rest of us.

So if you happen to come across a cute and cuddly widget, take heed that looks can be deceiving. On the other hand, your favorite frogans can look like Dracula’s nightmare and still be the perfect pet. I’d like to know what the MCRC will have to say about that.