Archive for the ‘Widgets’ Category

Ever wonder what exactly APIs are all about? Take a look under the hood of Web 2.0 with The Other Librarian who details the who, what, why, and how of Application Program Interfaces. Ryan Deschamps spells out key acronyms and provides a 10 step program for using an API in his APIs: Who? What? Why? How?.

BusinessWeek has come out with a series of articles, a podcast, and a video interview about using widgets such as Facebook applications for social marketing campaigns. If you are at all interested in using these viral social networking applications, you’ll want to check out these sections of the special report:

• Building a Brand with Widgets:
  The customizable bits of software on Facebook and other social networking sites are the latest trend in viral marketing. But are widgets here to stay?
• Widgets: The Future of Online Ads:
  Look to the evolution of television advertising to understand the necessity of widgets in today’s online world
• The CEO Guide to Widgets:
  Widget Podcast
• When Facebook Ads Flop:
  For every marketing widget that takes off on the social network, dozens bomb. A look at why
• Why Widgets Don’t Work:
  Marketers are mistaken if they think these easy-to-forward applications will help them make deep inroads to the MySpace generation
• A Widget Mogul in Between Classes:
  Ankur Nagpal, a 19-year-old UC-Berkeley student, finds the keys to viral success and rakes in the cash on Facebook
• Making Money From Widgets:
  How creators of small apps can profit - BusinessWeek’s Catherine Holahan interviews VideoEgg CEO Matt Sanchez about earning a wage from widgets

If you’re interested in widgets, you may want to check out this article I wrote for School Library Journal which talks about what widgets are, highlights some of the more popular widgets in use, how libraries are using them, and how you can make your own.

“On a recent visit to the San Jose Zoo, I made a beeline for a family of meerkats. You know, the ever-vigilant and undeniably adorable relatives of the mongoose, title species of the popular Animal Planet television show? I never miss an episode of Meerkat Manor. So, no surprise, I returned from the zoo with a camera-full of snapshots, which I quickly uploaded to Flickr. Within minutes, anyone who visited my Facebook and MySpace profiles could view my pics of the 12-inch cuties, all thanks to a little application called a widget.”

Got an iGoogle start page? Want to see a different library pic everytime you load it up? There’s a new Google Gadget that you can add to your page which will let you do just that. It’s the Custom iGoogle Skins by Bonstio which will allow you to not only choose from many of the provided themes to spice up your page, but will let you import a random image from any Flickr group which will change each time you refresh the page.

Here’s how it works:

• Follow the link above or Select “Add Stuff” at the top right of your iGoogle page and search for Custom iGoogle Skins.
• Choose “Add it Now” to add it to your page.
• Once you add the gadget to your page, you’ll want to expand it so you can select a theme (click the + sign).
• Go to the “Rules” tab and select “Feeling Lucky?” from the drop-down list and click the plus sign next to it to add this new rule.
• At this point you have added the theme, but it’s pulling in images from the HDR Panorama group, so you’ll want to change that.
• Up at the top of the gadget, click the upside-down triangle and select “Edit Settings”. The sixth option down will give you the opportunity to change the Flickr group id, this is where you will enter the number for any Flickr group.
• Finding the Flickr group ID number is a bit tricky so I’ve provided some for you below, but if you hover your mouse over the “Join this Group” or “Invite” links when in any Flickr group, you will see a number at the end of a URL (after “id=”) appear down in your status bar - that’s the number you need.

Flickr Groups:

• Libraries and Librarians - 38416968@N00
• Library Signage - 79623799@N00
• Libraries UK - 79623799@N00
• Interestingness Top 10 - 44055355@N00

Inspired by Web Worker Daily

If you have a blog, you can now easily create a blog widget or “blidget” for it such as this one below for iLibrarian.

Using the easy Blidget development wizard on Widgetbox, creating a custom widget for your blog is as as easily as copying and pasting the URL into a wizard and choosing settings. And once you have a nifty new blidget, you can follow the instructions on Widgetbox to turn it into a Facebook Application as I have done here:

If you’d like to add this blidget to your blog, social network profile, or start page such as iGoogle or Netvibes, here’s the link to its Widgetbox page with the quick-install buttons.

JupiterResearch has a new report out on the use of widgets, also known as gadgets, which are the small applications which display Web content from external sources, often through an RSS feed. They can be added to a blog, social network profile, start page, or other website.

The report, Widgets: Delivering Applications Users Want shows heavy use of widgets by people who use social networks, as well as some other interesing statistics:

• 39% of people online are familiar with widgets
• 26% have used them
• Overall, people are twice as likely to get their widgets from friends as from the companies that made them, however, online users aged 18-24 are six times as likely to get their widgets from friends over companies
• The most popular widgets are media players - those that display video, music, and/or photos
• The 18-24 demographic also shows a preference for games and entertainment widgets such as favorite book lists or gift applications.

Two new tools will allow you to quickly and easily embed Flickr slideshows into your website or blog.

with flickrSLiDR

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

with PictoBrowser

Everyone knows that widgets are the new black. They are cool, they are slick, they are playful. The rise of widgets was caused by several factors including the adoption of RSS, the expansion of the blogosphere, growth of social networks, fashion of self-expression and the democratization of the web at large.

A major development in the history of widgets occured just this week; the W3C published a draft of the first widget specification. The goal of this effort is to standardize how widgets are scripted, digitally signed, secured, packaged and deployed in a way that is device independent, follows W3C principles, and is as interoperable as possible with existing market-leading user agents on which widgets are run. The spec is very raw, and mostly based on desktop widgets rather than their web cousins, but it is already showing the direction where the W3C thinks widgets should evolve.

[From: Read/Write Web]