Original Signal.com (OSig) does have a widget. I discovered this after writing the previous post.
OSig’s widget is a simple javascript that delivers the top (first) article from each feed on the OSig pages. This covers any of the main categories and sub-categories they have listed on their page, including Web, Tech, World, Business and Entertainment.
This could be a handy feature to add to your blog. It could be used as a resource in conjunction with a chat widget. You could use it to impress your girl friend. Or you could use it as sidebar filler. Whatever is done with it, it’s still a handy little widget.
Here is how the widget looks using only 5 headlines.
Here is how the widget looks after I tweaked it.
I put the widget code into a table and added background color, border and cell padding. This is a simple way to customize some widgets. This will not work for all widgets.
Resources such as RSS and email subscription services are a good way to speed up the time you spend reading blogs. Rss allows you to subscribe to all of the content from blogs/sites of your choice.
Email subscription services allow you to subscribe to certain content that you are interested in from blogs/sites of your choice.
These are both great tools that become more popular everyday. Unfortunately they sometimes require extra steps that take more time. Sometimes email subscriptions services deliver information after you have already seen stories about a particular topic. Bummer!
This is where news aggregators swoop in for the rescue. Sites such as Pageflakes.com, Netvibes.com and of course the new and improved Original Signal.com (my all time favorite) offer a simple interface that allows you to view headlines from your A-List of important sites. At a glance, you can tell if there are any topics of interest to you and then act on them accordingly.
For the absolute fastest glance at the headlines from the top sites on the net today, Original Signal(OSig) can’t be beat. There is no need to log in if you don’t want to customize OSig. Just click on the OSig bookmark that you have created and start reading headlines. Mouseover headlines to get the first few lines of content to see if the story is for you. (all three of these sites perform this action)
PageFlakes.com and Netvibes.com are more geared towards a start page type interface. This requires a log in and user interaction to make the page the way you want it. Some of the options include: weather in your locale, Flickr photo display, Search bars, access to your email etc. etc. The list of options are extensive.
I won’t pretend to know everything there is to know about any one of these three sites. But what I do know is, that out of the three, OSig has saved me the most time. That makes Original Signalmy Favorite!
Now for the absolute mind bender…once you have all this information and you blogged about it, emailed it, IM’ed it and called your friends about it. You’re done…right? Wrong. Because that seems like a lot of work. More work than you want to do…right? Spokeo.com has the solution. Recommend your stories and favorite headlines and they will show up on your friends Spokeo pages. If they then recommend the same stories to their friends eventually your stories may make it to the featured user page. Now all you have to do is create a spokeo page and start friending.
I happened to be over at TechCrunch on Saturday, reading this excellent post “The six biggest new ideas in chat” when I see the inCircles chat widget. At first it seems to be another chat widget. Boring…been there…
2 hours later I had to stop chatting…I had too much other stuff I had to accomplish before the night turned into morning.
I couldn’t stop thinking about how easy it was to get sucked into chatting with inCircles.
I knew I had to add it to Widgets Lab. As you can see at the top of this page, the link to my inCircles chat. Which I had to place at the bottom of this blog. (I have to reign in the widgets sometimes, otherwise it would take two days to load this page) I can’t guarantee someone will be there but give it a try anyhow. You can always find other sites in the widget that have more people chatting.
inCircles chat pros
1. Flash widget (no Javascript) so this should be MySpace friendly.
2. Two size options. A wide version and a narrow version optimized for side bars
3. Four color options. Black, White, Blue and Pink
4. Very fast response time. Hardly any lag at all.
5. No registration needed! Either to get the widget or to chat. Sweet!
inCircles chat cons
1. Visitors are automatically logged in when they visit your site. This makes it appear as though there are more people chatting then there actually are.
2. There are no moderation capabilities. Foul mouthed hooligans have a tendency to ruin a good time. ( I would like to see a DIGG style thumbs down vote type of moderation, where chatters agree to silence an offensive thread.)
Everyone has a question and most want an answer. If you don’t want Yahoo answers, Answerbag.com or Askville there seem to be plenty of other options. Yedda.com seems to be one of those other options. There is no fancy points or virtual coin gimmicks with Yedda. Just Q&A.
You can earn a rep with Yedda. You may become the answer guru. If you do you will be happy to know that you easily display the fact of your intelligence in the form of a Javascript widget. If your using MySpace…sorry your widget use is excluded. Unless you wanted to continuously update a screen image of your widget…sounds like fun!
I will display my Yedda.com profile widget below. Don’t be alarmed that I have a zero rating. I don’t have time to wander these sites looking for questions that I can answer.
**CORRECTION**
I have found yedda.com to be an engaging and fun experience. My only regret is now I’ll need scrape another hour off of my sleep schedule. (Hmmm, I wonder if I can sleep at work?)
I am currently testing yorQA.com. This is a more personalized “Question/Answer” site. YorQA is basically centered around a widget that sits on your blog and allows your users to see that you are online and ask you questions. YorQA is currently in invite only beta testing so expect some bugs if you are trying to ask questions.
I know other “answer” sites have widgets. (yahoo answers and answerbag to name a couple) But this seems more personalized. The other answer sites almost seem to be an extra step between you and a user.
This is a “Revenue sharing site”. Not sure how exactly how that works. You need to plug in “your” Google adsense code and then YorQA will split the revenue 50/50 with you. Must be that your answered questions are collected into a searchable index.
As of right now I am having some difficulties using this service. But as with all beta testing this is to be expected.
If you have an absolutely pressing question try out the yorQA widget (pink in sidebar) If it doesn’t work…email me (under my photo)
This next has added a "Blog it" feature that allows you to easily add any of your lists to your blog. They have made it almost too easy.
I am posting my wish list just in time for Christmas. In case you would like to get me a gift.
I am also using the This Next post window for this post. This Next gives you control of the size of the image, lets you choose the number of images and their layout. You also get to title your post and write your post all from this next.
Unfortunately, at this time Vidiac does not work with Mac (Apple)
This is their list of requirements for the “Vidiac Live” service.
“Supported Devices and Operating System
USB webcams made by manufacturers such as Creative Labs and Logitech are fully supported as are DV camcorders connected via Firewire. Currently Vidiac Live is fully supported by Windows XP and requires Windows Media Encoder (included in the install file) and Microsoft .NET 1.1. “
Thanks to Pete Cashmore over at mashable.com for awesome content.
MySpace maps. Show off all of your profile visitors locations. Don’t worry though, the map won’t pinpoint them in their bathroom or something.
ModMyProfile.com (MMP) has a ton of cool MySpace add-ons. From layouts to graphics, even MySpace tools. MMP offers a sweet World Visitor Map that displays the general locations of all of your visitors.
This Visitor Map is…
FREE
Easy to use and fun as well.
Obviously MySpace friendly.
Uses familiar Google maps.
Has multiple map color choices.
Awesome size…not too large.
There is no doubt about the popularity of MySpace. There is no question that MySpacers want to be able to customize their MySpace page. What better way to do that, then with “MySpace Funny Widgets”
MySpace Funny Widgets (funny4myspace.com) is exactly as the name implies…Humorous widgets that work on MySpace and AnySpace for that matter. Whether it’s a joke of the day or hilarious quotes, bumper stickers or random facts. This collection of widgets gets the humor job done.
Stop by and grab one or two for YourSpace.
Each widget is…
1. Flash based (so they work on limited blog platforms)
2. FREE (but I’m sure the author wouldn’t mind a $1)
3. Colorful with designs geared towards “Funky Minds”
4. Fun or at least interesting. (this is an opinion)
5. Easy to add to your MySpace or Blog.
snap.com
With a bit of Javascript you can add a visual preview to all of your blogs links. It’s FREE and fun!
I discovered this on TechCrunch Nov 18 2006
Similar services include Browster and Cooliris Both are browser plugins instead of a widget
immedi.at
FREE to use
No registration required.
Get notified via IM (Instant Messaging) when your favorite sites are updated.
Works with MSN, Jabber, AIM and ICQ (Yahoo soon)
Unfortunately it doesn’t work with my version of Google Talk.
Similar services include: ZapTXT.com, Rasasa.com, FeedCrier (AIM)
Labpixies.com
FREE to use.
No registration required.
Uses Javascript
Labpixies.com has a whole range of widgets that you can put on your blog. Sticky notes to calculators, Poker to ringtones. There are addictive time wasters like “flood”. A game where you have to flood the board with one color. You have to do it in 25 moves or less. It’s so much fun I’m going to put it in this post so you can play.
Photo slide shows with music.
Text Generator
…and something called “scratch”
RockYou.com allows you to create slide shows and add music from their collection. Also they offer a text generator with a bunch of funky, flashy fonts. Not to mention adding effects to your photos and treating a photo to the ultimate…Lottery effects.
This is cool!
Photos can be uploaded and saved to RockYou. Your photos can be customized by adding different effects including glitter, bubbles etc… You can also add text and music to a slide show that you create. Rockyou is very easy to use. No technical terms to confuse and aggravate new users. Sharing with your friends is as easy as sending an email. Comments are also allowed, creating a “custom photo community” All of this is centered around a embeddable Flash widget. MySpacers rejoice!
This is OK!
Photo file size limit is 3mb. Most photos should come in well under this 3mb limit. Unless you are using a 10 megapixel camera set on highest resolution.
There is a simple registration that is required. This is so you can save your projects and edit them without having to start over each time.
This seems to be an all around good service with easy to create widgets. Great for MySpace users as well as any other blog or journal sites.
Askville.com is in limited beta (Invite only) I have 25 invites. Leave a comment if you would like one.
The first thing I did not like about askville was the “cell phone sign-up” In order to use this service you need to supply your mobile phone number so they can send you a text message to confirm you as a user. They explain why, in detail on the site.
Askville.com at first looks like any other “answer site” and some parts of it are the same as any other “answer site”. Once you get into askville and start asking/answering this is when you start to discover how cool this actually is.
For your asking/answering you get to use a really nice Rich Text Editor similar to some blog text editors. The best part, from my point of view, is the ability to add widgets to your answer. There are only three widgets available at this point.
You can add a Map widget displaying locations that you choose.
There is an Amazon.com Product widget. (useful?)
And you can embed a video of your choice from YouTube or Google video or…..
I plan on trying this service a bit more. Then continuing this review.
30boxes.com has seen the absolute importance of widgets. With thousands of new blogs created everyday…widgets, badges and all other things that help bloggers customize their blog will become wildly popular.
30boxes.com has taken their online calendar and created a mashup called 30 boxed. What this means is they are allowing you to create a custom widget based on their calendar. You are able to add RSS feeds, photo links etc. You’re creating a visual timeline.
No subscription is needed
This is sweet!
You are creating a calendar based visual representation of a blogs posts or if your photo host has RSS capabilities…your photo stream.
Mouseover any of the days to get text displaying titles. Click on any of the days to get actual links to the posts or …whatever you have plugged into this awesome widget.
The Blogging Times is one of my favorite web destinations. (Disclaimer: They own me!)
Now I’m sure you’re saying “He has to say that…”
No, I don’t. I say it because I find TBT to be a rich source of blog news, cutting edge commentary and even humorous satire. This is content without the slant, without the rant. I visit there on a daily basis to find out whats happening around the blog sphere and around the other sphere. (the one we live on)
Dominic has recently redesigned TBT and has done a fantastic job of it. The lines are crisp. The content is uncluttered. The sidebar is easy to navigate and rich in resources.
That said, I have decided to try and show a little appreciation by mashing together the TBT RSS feed with Grazr (another favorite of mine)
Grazr allows you to do this with any RSS feed or feeds. Grazr blows away any other widget of this sort. They make it simple and customizable and you don’t have to register to use it.
So, without further yakking by me…here it is.
Here is the code (edit the height and width to fit your page)
Stumble this!
