iBegin.com A weather forcast on your blog

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iBegin.com A weather forcast on your blog

by Derek Anderson	Stumble this!	May 26th 2007

iBegin.com is a site dedicated to creating a personally useful internet. One that surrounds us, not in a technological sense but more in a local user created sense.
This would be a place that you and I can add to and refine in order to enhance the areas in which we live. Restaurant reviews, good deals, exceptional service…just about anything that you think is worth sharing with the residents in your community.

iBegin has kicked things off with a weather widget that you can place on your blog.

We all know that talking about the weather is a good way to break the ice. With a widget, iBegin gets the word out about their service and people start to show up and create their communities. Awesome thinking!

Shut up already!…give us the widget.

The first thing I noticed about the iBegin weather widget is it’s simple attractiveness. The widget has very clean lines and is easy to read. You don’t have to spend any amount of time figuring out what you are looking at. There are icons depicting the current conditions and future forecasts and you can easily tell the high and low temps for each day.

Who cares what the weather is like over there?

This problem is solved with the simple city, state or zip code search that is located at the bottom of the widget. Now your visitors have one less thing to complain about…they can search weather for their own locale and be satisfied with the results.

Unfortunately the search results are not loaded into the widget. When you search with this widget you are redirected to the iBegin weather page. This isn’t such a bad thing…that page is just as easy to use and it links you to a wealth of information about your community. I’ve found things I didn’t know! I don’t believe your readers will be put out by the redirect…in fact I think they will appreciate it.

Dude…get back on track!

click above to get yours

This widget is completely customizable! (finally someone that has heard my appeals.)
you can change…

Function
select whether or not the city at the top is a link to the iBegin weather page or not.
switch between two sizes for the current conditions icon.
toggle current conditions and forecasts.
show or hide the search.

Appearance
background color and width (two of the important ones)
border…both thickness and color (almost unheard of)
font…size and style (font choices in a widget…someone pinch me)
you can also toggle icons on and off.

Missing options
Social profile compatibility. (at least the ones that block JavaScript)
Branding (i would love to see my logo in this widget)…or
Custom title (Widgets Lab’s Weather..or..Sticky’s Weather)
Grill guarantee (a guarantee that the weather will cooperate with outdoor activities)

weather.ibegin.com/