If there is something Google is a master besides Search and Advertising, is PR Stunts. the latest is more of a Publicity stunt but it is indeed a good one. offering iGoogle users with more than 100 new Themes thanks to a new series of iGoogle Themes called Artist Themes.
These artist themes count with the participation from mix of individual from all kinds from Snob to Hip and even Geeky creds.
You have themse designed by Beasty Boys, Phillip Starck, PPaper and even guys like Mark Echo, so yeah, quite a mixed bag for everyone
You can access those themes and try the out to make your iGoogle Gadgets look fresh every day at:
iGoogle Artist Themes
Guitar Hero is all the rage…still!
Wow…I suck at this!
I can safely say that this is a bitch to play. In order to be effective at this little gem, you will need 5 fingers on your left hand.
Now…you are looking at your left hand and thinking…”this guy is an idiot…most people have 5 fingers on both hands”. You are wrong!
Most people have four fingers and a thumb on their left hand and with this game/widget trying to use your thumb for the fifth fret (or whatever you GH3 fanatics call it) is nearly impossible.
Looks like your index finger will be doing double duty…at least on the “Hard” song.
Speaking of songs…
There are three songs to choose from so your fingers wont’ become too sore. However, developer Rocket XL and Activision have seen fit to create a contest of sorts with this widget.
Supposedly if you maintain top ten status (un-determined amount of time) you become eligible to win prizes.
Quite a clever marketing idea with this widget. Should prove to boost sales for GH3 and quite possibly promote more sales of the upcoming GuitarHero Aerosmith to be released in June 2008
How do I get it?
Copy and paste baby…thats how.
Here is the code for this Flash widget that you can pop into your blog, Myspace page or just about anywhere you can edit layouts. Watch out though…its 461 pixels wide. Safe for most Myspace pages but many blog sidebars aren’t that wide.
Here’s where I found it:
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/04/scoop-the-guita.html
Proving that they just cannot stay still more than a week, Netvibes announced today in the Netvibes Blog that it was time all users got acquainted with Ginger. the great new Startpage engine now running for all.
This move marks the point where Netvibes officially lets everyone to compare their Startpage to the big 3 and with the now acquired PageFlakes that once was the best and most advanced Startpage.
Ginger is truly the sucessor to all the current Startpages and compared to it`s competition it could be considered next-gen, because it is simply that advanced compared to them.
Yet anything can happen, and it is not expected for them to stay this far away of the competition featurewise. iGoogle, is making their move, AOL acquired Goowy (Yourminis) and it is probable they could end up being part of the new MyAOL startpage. and anything can happen in My.Yahoo and My.Live.com even if they keep separated ways. the only sure shot on what will happen is Pageflakes now finally getting good marketing and better integrated media support.
Considering that. is good for netvibes to have as much ahead time as they can get..so keep it up guys, you have done great.
Netvibes
via Netvibes Blog
It has passed quite sometime in the road for a final Widgets 1.0 Document, over a year from first intentions and 9 months since i first reported about this when i was starting my stint here at Widgetslab.
I even had forgot about this all together, too much has changed in the widgets landscape in the past 9 months, so much, that this document is already running extremely late already.
I say late because these are not the final 1.0 specs, these are drafts and as in any case of standards, until they have not been sealed as final, they cannot be seen in a encompassing light, much less with what has happened in the last 9 months.
Al Mekrebs from WidgetBeat got pretty good summary of the new drafts:
“The Widget Landscape (Q1 2008): reviews commonalities and fragmentation across widget user agents and explores how fragmentation currently affects, amongst other things, authoring, security, distribution and deployment, internationalization and the device-independence of widgets.
• Packaging and Configuration: defines a Zip-based packaging format and an XML-based configuration document format for widgets.
• Digital Signature: defines a profile of the XML-Signature Syntax and Processing specification to allow a widget resource to be digitally signed.
• Requirements: lists the design goals and requirements that specification would need to address in order to standardize various aspects of widgets”
I am optimistic in thinking that the final Widgets 1.0 specs documents should be finished before 2008 ends but i am not gonna hold my breath to it.
W3C Widgets 1.0
With now two months on the market the Chumby is truly sustaining its momentum by the rate its Widget Network grows considering that it only works in one appliance and that you have to buy that appliance in specific to get them and that the appliance in question is not cheap at this moment.
It now has over 500 widgets to choose from already and the most popular sections are:
- 1.-Entertainment
- 2.-News
- 3.-Games
- 4.-Webcam
- 5.-Weird
I am surprised to see entertaiment above news and that games are picking up so fast. there are now 50 game widgets in Chumby Widget network.
Check them out.
Chumby Widget Network
Chumby
Color me not surprised at all by this news, but Netvibes saying their are going to Open Source their Widget Platform goes in line with what they already where going with the whole “Universal Web API” Widgets they were pushing and it is a way to compete not only with the recent iGoogle Developer Sandbox announcement but with things to come like Sprout and MuseStorm, etc.
Netvibes to Open-Source its Widget Platform
Netvibes
via CNET
I know, i know. was not the MySpace Application Platform was already released over a month ago?
Yes and no, yes it was released for viewing and use, but was not released for the general public since MySpace had not linked it internally or started marketing for it and neither considered ready for good.
That is now, now it will be pushed by MySpace, linked and marketed in General.
That is pretty much it. lets see that if this change makes a significant difference in the adoption of MySpace Apps to what before were a lukewarm reception, something that i can attribute to the Zero awareness that 70% of active Myspace users had about it. so i am betting on adoption incrementing at least 300% for the next month. lets see if i can hit the mark on it.
MySpace Apps
I like the OpenID idea, i really do, but i still problem with it because i think it needs not only more backup like the one it is receiving now by the big players, but because there are still lots of quirks that need solving before it can truly be accepted in a mainstream form and get to be what it needs to be.
Some of the problems it had was that it was not Fool proof to implement and there were not enough providers, the providers dilemma has been solved but implementation still needed solving to be truly fool proof.
That is where this nice and simple widget comes in. ID selector lets you select your OpenID provider and add yourself to it quick while providing awareness on the different OpenID supporters there are.
It is a OpenID promotion tool and a facilitator to users that are interested in using OpenID in your blog to identify themselves.
Other benefits as pointed out by Jainrain CEO Brain Kissel in the comments are:
“Additionally, ID Selector can be installed in minutes, is fully configurable by the website operator, and allows “one click login” for return visits by your users (remembers your preferred OpenID)”
Worth a look if you are interested in OpenID
ID selector
OpenID.net
via CNET
*UPDATED
Pageflakes is a nice startpage that while never gained traction or mindshare was actually the startpage that started the Startpage craze from 2006. and it was such a craze that it ended up with too many competitors at the same time. the fact that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft updated their Startpage offerings in time to compete with Pageflakes didnt´ helped them either. but that was not what caused them to be overlooked. Netvibes did. Netvibes execution of the Startpage concept brought it further than Pageflakes ever could do so in time. the Last Netvibes Update, Ginger was the nail in their coffin….or so it was thought, because Live Video was smart enough to saw a good opportunity in acquiring a good product, instead of having to develop their own.
Live Universe is a Media company, mostly focused in video content now that also acquired Revver and that wanted a good way to create a Social context network for their offerings and a Start page is a good option to do it, so PageFlakes will end be the base of Live Universe “MyLiveVideo” personalized pages, that means that they get a StartPage were to market their content and who can build their users profiles/personalized pages to serve focused content.
The whole idea of PageFlakes finally getting good marketing and more media infused to them sounds like a promising future to a startup that was close to dwell into irrelevance.
Having PageFlakes team in LiveUniverse also makes me think that their Web Widget offerings could finally go somewhere beyond Video.
PageFlakes
via PageFlakes blog
Earlier this month, AOL bought Sphere, Sphere is a Blog Content Engine that at first tried to be a blog search and later turned into a relevant content suggestion engine. i remember that i used their service in Bloggeratto from the time they started out and i liked the idea, they later turned into a more in form Widget button and now it is a widget button that launch a lightbox where the relevant content is served so your visitors don´t leave your site. i must say i am not familiar with the latest version they updated fro Wordpress as a Blogger, we still don´t have that version here at Widgets Lab. but i am interested in putting in place, now more than before because Wordpress CEO Matt Mullenweg said today they were going to integrate a Related Posts Plugin that will use Sphere as the backend to serve the relevant content.
This is not something truly new, there had been other similar implementations as Wordpress plugins and i dare say that when i saw it in Blogger first almost two years ago. it is still nice to have Wordpress trying the idea in a Official form. Blogger has not done it yet. but it would not surprise me if they followed suit this summer when Blogger gets updated.
Sphere now working for AOL is indeed a great idea because AOL recent acquisitions in both Social Networking (bebo) and in the Widget front (yourminis). so this is another smart purchase for them.
I look forward to see how well Sphere Works in Widgets lab later when we update the blog.
Sphere
After a month of silence from the time Widgetbox announced their New CEO once investor to join the company they finally released a new version of the Widgetbox site with a new and improved layout, made reassurances on their Bebo App Accelerator and finally released a Iphone App Gallery.
Yeah, this iPhone App Gallery was done without any Apple SDK involved and a way to make the best of what they already had lingering in the widget galleries and pushing the latest iphone compatible widgets too.
These widget are compatible to the iPhone and can be seen, installed and used directly from the device.
iPhone Widget Gallery
Still not a proper response to the new kid in the block, but this marks change and it is just a matter of weeks for more widgetbox announcements, i can bet on that.
Widgetbox
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