There was a period of UI design in the late-2000's (late 90's, if you include BeOS) where desktop gadgets caught on, and I thought that was a pretty good implementation of the general idea.
Then it all vanished for some reason.
Then it all vanished for some reason.
That's a little generous, but the rise of smartphones (and their data connections) brought widgets and gadgets to the handheld, with-you-everywhere device and a little advertising on top didn't hurt. The motivated persons who developed the gadgets for free or donation moved to apps because it worked better for them _and_ they were able to get some extra money on top.
Then you have MS playing catch up and trying to merge mobile and desktop in all the wrong ways with 8 and the userbase shrunk. What was left was OS X and I'm not sure what happened there.