Widgetop is a start page focused entirely on widgets that works pretty nice and makes all dead simple to use, so if you like widgets and like the idea of having a start page like that intead of the usual ones, you can try this one out.
The edge Widgetop has over other Start Page services is that you can also have a mirrored version of your regular Widgetop start page you use in your PC on your mobile.
Right now it only works on high end Nokia Phones and the Iphone but with the next gen Mobile browsers releases being around the corner you will be able to use it in a windows mobile or symbian device soon enough.
My only niggle with the service right now is that it don´t support IE7 yet, something i find insulting, how a service like this can not support IE is beyond me, so i hope they get their act together soon.
the same goes for not having a windows mobile version of their desktop, but that one i can understand, but it would be nice if they had it already without having to wait for the new opera, firefox and IE mobile releases.
So you like Twitter?, would you like to have a more personalized Twitter badge? and you would like to be able to place that badge everywhere?
Then you need Korelab Twitter Balloon.
The idea is pretty simple, you put a picture of you or your favorite Picon (personal icon) and that way what you tweet will be twittered inside the badge as if it were said by you or your Picon.
here you can see a example of it with me:
This example speaks by itself (pun intended), so if you like the idea of placing this badge on your Myspace, blog and other social networks just go here:
Myspace announces developer platform to open Feb 5th. Pre-registration (requires Myspace account) Google Open Social to be supported from beginning. Open Social developers will have head start.
People have been wondering… when is Myspace releasing their developer platform?
Facebook has seen tremendous growth that I think can be somewhat directly related to the opening of the Facebook developer platform and the addition of a ton of creative functionality.
I will admit that I spend little time on either Myspace or Facebook. For starters, I’m not a highschooler looking to chat and interact with my friends and share pictures with them. I have determined that my time is more valuable. Besides, Myspace is like the “trailer park” of the Internet.
Facebook has so much to offer…in fact, too much to offer. Navigation on the site has gotten confusing to the point where it takes more effort than its worth just to get back to where I was. Its nice to have an awesome feature set. But who wants to have to remember that just hitting the “back” button on your browser isn’t going to bring you back to where you think.
Is Myspace turning into Facebook?
Indication is no. Myspace has taken their time in creating this developer platform. Watching the trials and falters happening with the Facebook platform. You can rest assured that Facebook was not the only dev platform that they were observing either. You will remember a flurry of platform activity shortly after the Facebook release. Bebo, Friendster even TypePad has a widget platform.
Myspace concentrates on…
Privacy being one of the main concerns. Plagued by acceptable use issues including cyber bullying and stalking, this should be a top concern. As Adam Ostrow (mashable) pointed out:
the company (Myspace) will avoid the feed spam issues that have plagued “other players in the space” (he wouldn’t mention Facebook by name, but he didn’t have to). Additionally, don’t expect anything like Facebook Beacon to be a part of the MySpace Developer Platform.
Another area of intense interest is monetization. Specifically to help Platform Developers to receive premium revenues utilizing Myspace’s extensive advertising sales force. I know I wouldn’t mind earning a couple thousand extra each month. But until this becomes proven…don’t put all your eggs in this one basket.
Look for more “Data Portability”
What this means is that potentially you will be able to display things like your “Friend List” on third party sites like a blog or other editable social platform. Unfortunately these “portability” features seem, at first glance to conflict with privacy and security issues. I suggest staying tuned it to see what unique solutions Myspace comes up with to address these issues.
SproutBuilder is a new startup that has created a web-based widget creation tool that allows you to use drag-and-drop options and a photo editor style interface to create widgets.
It should be real easy for a novice creator to build widgets with a professional appearance and function that would normally require experienced coders and mucho dinero! (a lot of developers are gonna be pissed!)
The tool itself is built with Adobe Flex, and features a ton of options. Embed videos, audio files, add images and RSS feeds as well as third-party services including Google Charts and Meebo Chat are available for your widgets as well.
You have control of such things as shading effects, bevel, glow and blur. Color gradients and shapes.
The widgets you create are Flash embeds that are completely viral and auto update when you publish changes.
The list is long…too long to put here. Watch the demo video below.
This is a really new tool and does contain some glitches such as disappearing pointer issues and restrictive browser requirements (Firefox 2.0 and I.E. 7 recommended)
But it is easy to see that a ton of work has been put into Sprout. Its well worth the time to visit and play around with the features and maybe even create a cool widget.
Here’s my ten minutes of play with this killer tool.
See Read/Write Web for possible early beta invites and a excellent review by Marshall K.
The widget is fully customizable with colors, logos or photos and links to anything you associate with your audio product. There is also an RSS feature for subscribing to podcasts.
The width appears to be somewhat sidebar friendly, but it seems as though there are no size options.
The widget works on all major platforms including Myspace, Blogger, Xanga and many more. Facebook will be added shortly.
How much?
There are two versions of the Blogamp service. Paid and Free.
The Free version only allows you to link to mp3’s that are hosted elsewhere online.
The paid version allows for mp3 upload and hosting. The charges are based upon number of plays. (directly related to bandwidth used)
Once upon a time in the Windows Live Gallery there was a Live Traffic Vista Sidebar Gadget that was taken down because of security issues, it was sorely missed by some active go around users in the usa.
But now all those issues have been resolved and the gadget is back and ready to download for those that want a quite cool Sidebar Gadget.
You can read more on the story about it by the horse mouth (that means the developer) at the LiveSide blog.
This is a video by CNET showing a hands on the new Yahoo Go 3.0 Beta, why it is interesting?, well because it shows the new widget based interface and how you now depend on the concept of Widget-apps to do things in it.
it reminds me a little of the exclusive UK Windows Mobile 6.1 interface, because you do everything on a series of slides. that seems to be the thinking behind all the new mobile interfaces so we can agree on the yahoo interface being as current as possible.
The Quintura search widget (currently in the sidebar) offers your readers a completely different way to search. Utilizing the ‘Tag Cloud’ to display search terms that are relevant to the query you entered into the search bar.
Hover over the text to activate the search term. The first three results will be displayed below the search window. There are also a smattering of Favicons displayed in the cloud to aid in visual recognition of your search query.
Kid friendly
There is also a kid friendly version of the widget that filters results for the younger crowd. It’s as easy to put on your blog as the original but delivers an extra level of safety for your readers.
The code
This is a JavaScript widget. It is width and height adjustable to fit into your blog.
If you feel adventurous…you can dig into the code a bit and adjust the color of the background as well as the default search term. This is particularly cool for promoting themes or contests. You can even use this feature to push readers to information you think they would find useful.
The widget is Free to use and there is no registration necessary.
Where do I get it?
The major problem with common phones and even common Windows Mobile based phones is screen state, there is not enough screen to put interfaces like the one in the most modern solutions but this problem could be avoided if you could easily navigate around your apps and mobile content faster and in a more efficient way.
that is what Zumobi aims for,. a widget based interface that will let you navigate thanks to tiles around your phone content and applications and that can take advantage of having a constant communication with the Zumobi app manager.
i decided to post about zumobi here, because it shows how widgets or widget based solutions spread beyond the web.
Orchestr8 is quite a creative idea that combines the new and the old, the new with things that remind me to a certain extent to Dapper because you can scrape content, to clipmarks because you can clip things just like you do there and the old because they are sprouting ideas of what you could do back in the day when Iframes were all the rage.
so you clip content from a page, manipulate it to make it look and output like you want and then you can widgetize such content like if it were in a iframe, a widgetized iframe that you can then share around whenever you want be it a blog , a profile or even build a website of such content if you like.
i must say that to some the idea of it seems like too raw, but i understand it perfectly and thing that such raw principle makes it powerful.
But don´t take my work for it, you can check it out by yourself in their site, be it using it, checking out the demos they got or seeing live examples of it.
now, what possible use this would have for regular users?
With a tool like this you can build your own start page, you can leverage info services into a website without knowing the technicalities of web development
(this is a real size screenshot of a live example that shows clipped content that got widgetized to take out live data from another page)
all of Orchestr8 tech comes from their AlchemyPoint platform that is also able to help you xtend even further the widgets you create and make them widget-apps that work with OpenSocial.
Ipartee is not a new startup. but they recently did a update to offer a Widget version of their service and the idea it is enticing,the model of the idea could be pretty much compared to a widget ad and the press kit in widget form. just take that form and refocus it for events and that is exactly what the ipartee widget offers, a way to share the information about a even before the even happens and that can be updated to reflect what happened at the event once it is finished, so you could share part of the experience of what the event was because people can leave comments about it, you can upload notes and photos as a recollection of it.
pretty simple. we have seen lots of widgets like these but the refocusing of the form thanks to the idea and the fact that it is a extension of a service is what makes it useful and valid.
The only thing i would want is if they offered a Flash or Silverlight Version of it instead of just a Script version, this is a widget that could be very easily used in Social networks like myspace and beyond.
Wow!
Based upon recent successes (1 billion ads served in 83 days= $1 mil at 1/2 penny per ad) Widgetbucks has formed what they call the “WidgetBucks Customer Council”.
This group is used as a way interpret customer response to new ideas.
One of the new ideas they are working on is called YieldSense.
YieldSense is a contextual PPC widget designed to deliver the highest yield ads based upon previous performance.
The experts say it more eloquently:
One example of new features and technology being tested by the WBCC is YieldSense(TM), a contextual, pay-per-click (PPC) ad widget that displays the highest yielding product categories and ad creative based on a revenue score that is automatically generated from past performance. We anticipate YieldSense (and specific details about it) to be more widely available in February.
What does this mean?
Does this mean that a WidgetBucks widget placed on your blog will deliver the most relevant ad to the individual viewing your page? Or does it mean that the ad served is the most popular among other like minded surfers?
I also think that they are trying to serve up the most profitable ad (profitable for the publisher) and I see this as maybe not sitting well with advertisers. It would be the same as Google Adsense telling everyone what the most expensive keywords (Adwords) are and then delivering them to everyones blog or website.
This would result in higher advertising prices and a drop in publisher payouts. A win win for WidgetBucks…until advertisers pull out.
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