If you ever wondered what situation can lead to a Widget being in risk of being penalized when they carry some hidden links or keywords and in what way that may be the best to approach. then this post by Brian Chappell should of some use.
He asked 16 SEO experts on this matter presenting this case to them:
“A site that sells chairs decides to build a widget. The widget shows the top 10 selling chairs on their site.
The chair selling website is called : chairsunlimited.com
At the bottom of the widget the following text is displayed: “Grab your Chairs Widget”
The phrase “Chairs” links to chairsunlimited’s widget page on the site, which explains how to “grab” the widget, for use on your site.
Should chairsunlimited be penalized in Google for deploying the tactic described above?”
Then, the SEO experts weigh in. follow to know the outcome.
Widget Optimization Demystified - 16 Experts Weigh In
I don’t know why…so don’t ask.
This was found on a Japanese blog named Blog Apartment.
I don’t read or speak Japanese. So I feel as though I miss out on a lot of cool things to be found.
Thanks to a new website… Bloglue… we now have a bit more insight into Japanese widgets and a resource for finding them.
Doug Proudman stopped by and shared the link to Bloglue in a comment on my earlier post about Japanese widgets. http://www.widgetslab.com/ 2007/07/13/japanese-widgets- how-many/
en.bloglue.jp
Given the demand for good Ad Widgets or Widget Ads. and with things like WidgetBucks doing the round lately. the nooked Shopping Ad Widgets are the perfect fit as a alternative for those looking for some revenue generated from a widget.
The concept with nooked is to turn you into a Shopping Advertising Agent for them via Widgets. they take care of the rest. you simply choose a product you may like or that fits in with the theme of your blog and then generate a widget that can serve such product. you also get to choose what source you want use. that means from what online retailer the stuff will come from.
Only you have made your Nooked Ad Widget you can then proceed to put it in your blog once you have of course registered with them. but as a way to try out how the widget looks. nooked let you make a widget and ask for registration once you have finished to made your widget.
The Widget Editor is very straightforward and allows for a good integration in most blogs.
The only question would be if it works and they pay once you have generated some money out of it. but to answer that, i guess you will have to try it out.
Nooked
via snipperoo
This is another kind of Chumby . Cowon is going to release a Pocket Internet Device Frame that showcases that its main feature is a Haptic Widget UI for the operation of the device. there is no many details on that but that is exactly as how cowon describes it. another example of the use of Widgetized UI`s as a way to enhance usability.
It packs quite great specs for such a device:
“800 x 480 pixels spread across a 5-inch touchscreen display featuring Cowon’s Widget+Haptic UI riding a 700MHz RMI Alchemy AU1250 processor. The P5 packs standard USB and USB-host jacks, T-DMB broadcast TV, FM radio, Bluetooth, TV-out (component, S-Video, and composite), stereo speakers, and up to 80GB of storage in a 138.8 x 88.5 x 20.0-mm slab of "Luxury Hairline Metal" (which sounds like brushed aluminum to us). It comes pre-installed with a Win CE Internet browser (a clumsy WiFi dongle can be added via the USB jack), MS Office document viewer, electronic dictionary, and support for AVI, ASF, WMV, MPG, OGM, DivX, Xvid, MPEG4, WMV9, MP3, WMA, AC3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and a few more media formats/codecs with a battery capable of about 9-hours of video or 14-hours of straight audio”
I certainly would like to try one out.
Cowon P5
via Engadget
Widgetbucks is the startup that has been compared to Adsense in a Widget. other said it is more of a non amazon affiliate Widget Ad option. whatever it is they seem to be doing great.
This is a step in the right direction because it makes the Widget easier to integrate into a blog. you can choose from 125 Widgetbucks skins or make your own to ensure it will fit right in and in turn maximizing the effect of the Widget.
However. not everything is so rosy. i still get comments and e-mails about suspended and blocked accounts in Widgetbucks. in order to clear this up i tried to contact someone at WidgetBucks but no one wrote back yet. i would like to get WidgetBucks CEO on hold for some questions so i will try again later.
widgetbucks
via techcrunch
There is not much that cocoment has updated since they won the fist commentosphere wars against co.mments and commentfull in 2007. the same goes for their Widgets.
Right now, the second round is all about Social Commenting Systems to what cocomment still don`t shows interest in answering to.
But one i had not seen up until now is that they got one widget for Google Desktop.
This Google Desktop Gadger for cocoment brings the functionality of the website to your Google Desktop Sidebar and lets you interact with your cocoment account. something useful for anyone using cocoment because this liberates you from having a open tab for comment or having to check in into the service in order to keep up with it.
The only thing i wonder about is why there is not a Vista Sidebar version of this or why there is not a iGoogle version of this?.
coComment Google Desktop Gadget <——— Direct Download Link
You can download it directly from here since they don`t even offer a landing page for the gadget.
coComment
via Mashable
*Update: direct link is now corrected*
Another week goes by and another Twitter Widget comes in. this time is TwitterCard. the idea is to generate little square that is quite alike to Twitter official widget badge but that looks better and use it as Identification Card or as temporal or permanent 125 x 125 Ad square in your blog.
The Widget generated is in JavaScript and it is a nice novelty widget option for not using the official Twitter Widget Badge. there is also a Wordpress Widget version of it for a better integration on Wordpress based blogs.
TwitterCard
Pingdom is a server and website monitoring service company. but they also offer some free tools for webmasters and the general public. one of those is the Pingdom Full Page Test Widget. you can place it in your site if you feel the need to promote such a service or you can put it wherever you want for mere curiosity.
It is a iframe widget and you only need to put the url you want to test, and then look at the generated test. it is a good thing because it is supposed to be a representation of how much time it take for a average user to load your website or blog in their computer.
I am happy to see that in a average modern computer it takes 15 seconds to load Widgets Lab that is script and widget heavy. this of course varies but right now it should take from 10 seconds to 30 seconds to load widgets lab. if your own experience suggest more than 30 seconds please let me know.
With the new Widgets Lab yet to come, we will try to make that 5 to 15 seconds. that widget is a good way to check as a reference.
As you can read, it already did something useful for me, so this widget may also be useful to you.
You use it from here too if you want.
Pingdom
Pingdom Full Page Test
via Tsunami Times
So MyBlogLog finally updated their look in the “Web 2.0” with a nice coat of pain and a organizational rearranging. that is great and it does looks quite better from what was before.
But, it is not supposed that the most important thing about MyBlogLog is the Widgets?. i mean the services would not have any meaning without them. that includes the pro accounts. so why they don`t have been updated yet?
Sure. one could said that the main Widget. the Recent Visitors Widget got a revamp earlier this year.
But it is not really accord to the new MyBlogLog look. the widget goes for the Yahoo Widget Engine look instead.so maybe it should also get changed?.
But i guess it compensates good enough because it looks glossy. i think not because it was already close to half a year ago.. but that is not that urgent compared to the other widgets that look like this:
Both the About Me and the New With Me Widgets. they look pretty bad and they haven’t been updated since they were both introduced. the new with me followed the About Me look that at the same time followed the previous look of MyBloglog that was already outdated when they first introduced it. the same can be said about the now also outdated Buttons and Badges
So please MyBlogLog. could you give us some not Retro Looking Widgets and badges that go hand in hand with your current look?. yes. a update would do fine. thank you.
MyBlogLog
Widgets Lab MyBlogLog Community <—– (join us if you are in MyBlogLog)
via MyBlogLog Blog.
They finally did it and it is now live. the MySpace Developer Platform now gives you the option to add App Invites to your MySpace Apps. be whatever it is, widget or widget-app now you can add a way for the app to grow virally.
While this is good news for MySpace App Developers and OpenSocial Widget-App developers it can also prove dangerous and should be used wisely. there is no way to know how MySpace will contain developers from abusing the system. so there is the chance of it turning ugly or MySpace shutting down Apps in the same way Facebook has done so. even if in the case of Facebook most of the cases were seriously biased. in the case of MySpace it should be different depending how this is adopted. Myspace is Known because of its PR harsh measures. so use wisely and behave.
MySpace Developer Platform App Invites Documentation
via Mashable
A interesting article by Susan Kuchinskas in the craze of looking for Widget-App monetization in the Facebook Developers Platform. worth a read.
The Big Business of Tiny Widgets
I must say that this is not something i would have expected from Wired. i guess they do have changed quite a bit in the last year. Wired wants to facilitate you a ego trip or inspire yo to go out and seek internet fame. the Celebrity Meter Widget is a way to let you know if you are Internet Famous.
“Are You Internet Famous? Use the Wired Celebrity Meter to find out how big a deal you really are. Our algorithm will dig through your personal pages to find out how many fans are following your online exploits.”
<iframe width="420" height="360" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="http://75.101.132.141/widgets/webrity">
if Your browser doesn’t support HTML iframes. You will not be able to see the Wired Celebrity Meter. Please try with a different browser.
</iframe>
Not much else to say. you can get the widget embed code within the widget here or as i have posted it.. i do find it disappointing that they could not do a proper Flash or Silverlight widget instead of a common iframe widget. i mean. they are wired….
Wired Celebrity Meter Widget
Hulu does it again. first they launched a service that managed to overcome all the bad rep it first had in anticipation and released very fine video player widgets. then they went with a “in your face” moment to Google`s YouTube and made their Video embeddables searchable within the widget and took video widgets to other level. now they went for video badge Widgets.
It is not that they are super customizable or super good looking. They are not. is the fact that none of the big video services had done it this well and much less YouTube.
The Widgets released by Hulu are just incredibly well executed. just like i had been telling Widgets should be in 2008.
Hulu released a slew of Widgets, and they can be separated in two kinds:
1.- Low End Video Badge Widget with Embedded Player
2.-High End Video Badge Widget without Embedded Player
When i say Low End i only say that when compared to the High End video Badge Widget from Hulu. in terms of other video services, the low end ones are as good if not better than the widgets from most services.
Lets start with the High End one. that truly blows away the competition up to now.
I.-Video Badge Widget with Embedded Player
This is a Video Badge Widget that got it all. it even resembles a Desktop app or could even pass as a extremely well designed iPhone app for that matter.
Why?. well what other Video Widget badge got the following things?:
-
*Search (full search of hulu programming like in the hulu embeddable video players)
-
*Browsing ( you can navigate the pages like in a website)
-
*Sorting (choose the parameter of the kind of content as clip, tv show or movie)
-
*Sections (featured, most popular recently added, queue)
-
*Loggable (you can load into your hulu account from it and use it for your common hulu use)
-
*Preferences (you can set your widget directly within it)
-
*Quick Embed option ( copy and paste embed code)
-
*High Spread Sharing module ( Vista sidebar, iGoogle, Netvibes and Facebook )
-
*Quick Viewing Embedded Video Player (that comes with its own full set of Options and info)
That makes it the most advanced widget of its kind i had seen up to now. there is of course a simple trade off. it is a Widgetized of Hulu Web Service fitted for iframe. i would not be surprised if this Widget ends up being the direct inspiration of Mobile Hulu and hulu iphone app (or viceverza).
The form also makes it a admirable Vista Sidebar Gadget and Widget for a Startpage or Facebook.
Even then it is truly admirable as a Widget and makes the Hulu service portable since it is completely Widgetized. it well deserves to be embedded here.
II.-Video Badge Widgets Without Embedded Player
A set of simple to use Video Badge Widgets done in Flash that can show your favorite clips in Hulu and take you to them but that you not only can get the code via a direct copy embed button click (a clever approach to the now old copy and paste) . something that is appreciated.
There are 3 of them and they comes they follow:
1.- Seasonal Video Badge (in this case summer)
This is a widget without customization, it shows you a set of featured hulu videos that are scheduled from the site every week. this could be seen as the most common Video Badge Widget like the one in any other service
2.-Sorted Picks Video Badge
This a Video Badges that lets you Sort Videos in it from a set of parameters:
- *Most Popular Today
- *Highest Rated Today
- *Recently Added
Then you can choose the kind of content to be sorted:
- *All Videos
- *All TV
- *TV episodes
- *TV clips
- *All movies
- *Featured Films
- *Movie clips
3.-Specific Show or Movie Widget
My favorite from the low end. you get to show the videos you want because you can sort and set your video widget badge from the widget because it counts with ALL of Hulu Programming in it for you to do it. that is a very simple idea, but yet brilliant because it is not common to see yet.
Still. for a first version of their Video Badge Widgets it is a very impressive and well executed first version set and a must have set of widgets for any Hulu user or even not yet hulu users.. if you are out of the usa. you are then out of luck unless you know of that certain thing you can get to be able to watch the videos. just like me that i am in Mexico.
The release of the widgets was broke by Techcrunch and they also got a video interview with hulu CTO where the widget is also shown.
Hulu
Hulu Widgets
via Techcrunch
Technorati Tags:
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Hulu Vista sidebar gadget,
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Hulu iFrame Widget
So, the hugely delayed and anticipated Alternative Search engine has lanched. and there are now Widgets?. Bummer. hope they add them soon. i also hope they fix the bunch of hole the search got.
I looked for Widgets Lab and if i search it like it don`t gives you a result. if you search MySpace Widgets (Widgets Lab is the first to third result in the first page in Google) you also find “anything”
I then searched for “widgets” and was surprised to see Widgets Lab suggested as a result in the search form and that the blog appeared in the first page. so for being so new, they are not so bad.. 
Lets see if they add widgets soon.
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