Embedit.in is a service to make any Document, Image, Text and URL into a widget. and not only a widget. but a flash widget capable of letting you see it in full screen.
If you put in a URL. it will give you a snapshot of all of what it can get to capture of your page at the time the widget loads.
You then can zoom in to real size or more and even use the widget in full screen.
if you load up a file. you then get a Document Viewer Widget alike to one by Docstoc or Scribd
As a online document viewer widget and online document converter, i find it capable and good thanks to the fact it has full screen support. but if you are interested in Online Documents and Digital Documents. you are well better off with Issuu, Scribd and Docstoc. but as a Website Snapshot service it comes off as a great and simple service to use because it assigns you a widget landing page and it is not just the simple screenshot of a at a time browser area but the full website and because it can be viewed in detail inside a widget. not much more you could want on that respect.
I still find the lack of any High Spread Sharing support and Customization disappointing because it would have elevated the service up a notch from Good to Great overall.
If you are hesitant to try this service because of your personal data. don`t fret. the service uses Delegated Identity Services. so you can choose from Open ID, AOL and Google to use the service. it also don`t has a eminent risk of going away overnight because this tool is supported around another services called BackBoard. this service is offered to you when you have your first Document turn into a widget. the service is a Digital Document Collaboration Service based around Feedback (document commenting) that could be compared to Office Live Workspaces.
Even considering i am not a Star Trek fan by any means. i can say that the Star Trek Movie Official Widget is one of the best promo widgets i have seen so far..
From the fact the widget has it`s own page. the information for the widget is explained timely and in a simple fashion. it focus on showing that you can share the widget and to which services.
That is only about the Widget page. the widget is even better. you can play the trailers, check photo galleries, check downloadable content, skin your widget with your favorite Star Trek character. pretty much everything you could want in a promo widget that is also well designed and thought from the navigation to its design.
But another thing i found great is that it also lets you watch the widget content in full screen without all ever leaving the widget. as i also mentioned it got great pride in showing where you share the widget
And the in-widget High Spread Sharing module is everything you would ever want. it don`t says who made this widget. but to whoever that did it. my hats off to you. this is how promo widgets should always be.
Mooncake Viewer is a very special photo album widget generator. it can generate DeepZoom Enabled Silverlight Widgets like PhotoZoom with several differences:
I.-You don`t have to upload a thing
Because it can do it from a online Photostream. either from Flickr or SmugMug.
II.-You can choose the Photos you want in the Widget right from a online photo service
It don`t add the whole Photostream or the latest photos. you get to choose what photos you want in the Photo Album Widget
II.-You get a way more featured and better designed Photo Album Widget
forget about the classic Deepzoom Wall configuration. Mooncake can generate that effect and 3 more to play with within the widget. you can filter the picture to show from a tag filter and you can jump from widget to full screen with the known silverlight ease.
Now. the only thing you need to do is to go to the Mooncake Viewer Website and do the following:
1.-Choose your Account Name and Photo Service
Choose the service you have a account with and then enter your username. you can also use anyone else username. so if you have know the username of a photographer you like or from a friend. you can also put that one in. Mooncake Viewer does not ask you for any other credentials.
2.-Select which photos from your Photostream you want to use in your Mooncake Viewer
In this case i entered Thomas Hawk photostream and selected some photos at random. be aware that the number of photos you select will affect the time you will have to wait in order for them to be converted in DeepZoom enabled images that are going to be used in the Silverlight Widget
3.- Review the Photos you choose and confirm for conversion
As i said before.the number of photos you choose. will determine how long will you wait. you cannot edit your widget after you have confirmed for selection without starting everything from zero. so choose with conviction
4.-Have patience while you wait
After confirming you photo choices. you only will have to wait for your widget to be finally rendered. this can take a while depending on your selection. while the page don`t states how long it takes. i measured the time with several and tries and i estimate it can take from 10 to 20 seconds per pciture. so if you choose 10 pictures. you Mooncake Viewer should take at least two and a half minutes or up to five minutes depending how busy the server is.
5.-Check out your Widget and copy your widget code.
It is worth the wait since it is a free service, the widget rocks and because you can just do something else in other tabs while the task is done. you don`t have to worry for the widget page to time out. just don`t forget to get the code before closing that tab because you don`t get a landing page for the widget you can track.
The only thing i would like the widget to have is a option to choose the size of the widget, that it could have a different form factor. other than that. it is of the best you can get when it comes to Photo Album Widgets.
Seadragon is the Codename for the technology known as DeepZoom in Silverlight. but it now has gone beyond that by extending to Mobiles starting with the iPhone. and also to the Web sans Silverlight as Seadragon Ajax.
So. if you are somehow worried that someone will not be able to see what you are posting because it is in Silverlight or if you want to be able to embed photos that can be zoomed in without any transitions for the user or without even having to activate a lightbox. you can count on Seadragon Ajax for that.
You only have to have DeepZoom Composer installed in your Computer ORbe a PhotoZoom user. then you can simply use the Seadragon Embed builder and Follow the instructions in order to build your Seadragon Ajax enabled photo widget.
Quite simple really. once you click the “build embed” button. you will have your embed in less than 30 seconds and you will be ready to go as it gives you the embed code.
As example. i will embed The Contoso Fixter photo that is truly a testament of how well the Ajax version of Seadragon works:
You can check out a Seadragon Ajax Gallery with other nice examples too if you want.
One of the first things that were showed back in Mix08 was the Hard Rock Memorabilia site that is a big wall of Musicians Memorabilia DeepZoom enabled and powered by Silverlight. back then Silverlight 2 was just a Beta and the site was a little rough. but it appears that they had quite a update when Silverlight 2 was officially released. now the site works marvelously cross browser and cross platform. but so does the widgets.
Yes. that is right. now can have a widget out of the memorabilia of the artist you like if that is your desire. for example i will embed Buddy Holly Glasses here in order to demo how does that looks.
The Memorabilia Widgets can only contain a item at a time and there is no size customization (you would have to set that by hand in the code). that is a shame. i truly wish you could share by artist too and had more customization choices.. but at least the widgets work very well and they look nice. they are also a must if you like the DeepZoom effect.
To get the widgets. just visit the Hard Rock memorabilia site and click to zoom in to a individual object to see the share option.
One of the intrinsically positioned technologies that caught notoriety thanks to the introduction of Silverlight was without a doubt Seadragon. also known as DeepZoom that its the technology Operative name. If you are in Windows you can easily create DeepZoom enabled photo albums powered by Silverlight thanks to DeepZoom Composer. but if you are in other operative system or you have a old machine. you are not going to be able to use it from your desktop. that is when PhotoZoom enters to save the day and more.
What is DeepZoom?
But if you are still wondering what exactly is DeepZoom, then let me enlighten you fast on that. it is a technology that allows you to zoom into photos as much as you want or as much as your picture resolution allows you to. that is without worrying about the size of the picture getting in the way since you only load by section. it is a lot alike Live Maps when you zoom into a map and this one starts rendering things closer. but in this case it is rendering a section of the very same photo in layers. it is also helpful because you can then have a collage of pictures put into the same frame and then just zoom in and view the pictures as you see fit. in the order you want. as close as you want without ever having to transition elsewhere. those are the main principles of DeepZoom
What is PhotoZoom?
PhotoZoom is a Microsoft Live Labs project that allows you to the same you can do with DeepZoom Composer on your desktop but online. it also lets you keep up your Photos online in a service that precedes the new Windows Live Photos service. you can upload you photos and put them in albums that can be seen as DeepZoom Enabled Silverlight powered objects or as Photo Channels where you can also select to see the photos individually if you don`t want to see them powered by Silverlight.
You can import from you computer or you can even import from a RSS feed in another Online Photo Service. you could for example use your photoblog feed or even a AlbumPhoto feed from Windows Live Photos. once you have added a feed or uploaded the pictures you want from your PC. just click import.
6.-Check out your PhotoZoom Album
For the sake of a good How-To and Review. i am going to use this nice album from my online buddy YungSang with a selection of Squirrel species.
You should be able to note i zoomed in as it is running with Silverlight and its DeepZoom enabled. a good thing to note is the part where it reads that you can “View Individual Photos”. just as i had told you. your photos are not trapped inside a Silverlight object. you can also see them as a group or individually if you want. that means you also get to share them that way. the only warning i must make is that PhotoZoom pcitures are meant to be public. so just have that in mind.
7.-Share it, Embed it
You can share your PhotoZoom Albums by Mail or also by embedding them into your blog, website or Social Network profile (if allowed)
Here it is a active version of the PhotoZoom Album as a Widget. so you can check it out. you can have it at whatever size you want by modifying the embed code. but you don`t need to resize it from the default size, because it can easily jump to full screen without any effort. this thanks to Silverlight. since this is a Live Labs project. it should be seen and reviewed as such. so i am only concentrating on what it already is. and i must say it is really good for having simple to use photo albums and photo album widgets.
Google Friend Connect is Google’s beginnings of a social infrastructure. Instead of a central location like Myspace or Facebook, Friend connect is spread to the far reaches of the net. In December, it opened to all Websites. That means that anyone with a Google, Yahoo, AIM, or OpenID username and password can sign in on any blog or site hosting a Friend Connect widget.
Friend Connect is also open to developers with the desire to design and build apps that integrate with Friend Connect.
Today, iLike (social music discovery service) announced a “social playlist” gadget utilizing the power of Google Friend Connect.
As the leader in social music discovery, we have used Google’s Friend Connect service to build a “social playlist” gadget, which launched today. This new feature empowers any Web site owner to add a playlist to his/her site. The social hook is that visitors to a participating Web site can “log in” (via Friend Connect) to edit these dynamic playlists by adding or deleting songs.
Music has been a central theme in the social sphere since day one. People tend to adopt music related services rather quickly and I don’t think this will be any different. I do hope that the “Audio Police” leave this one alone…but if the recent news about “muting” copyrighted content on YouTube is any indication of future action, can we expect similar issues when the iLike gadget appears on 1 million blogs?
update: Upon further inspection I have noticed that the music is streamed through Rhapsody and they impose a “25 play” limit on non subscribers. (not sure if this is per song or plays per widget) This cripples the reach of this widget dramatically!
Look at the sidebar bottom for the iLike “Social Playlist” gadget widget
Mahalo Answers is a cool concept and I thought it would be a great way for readers to connect with other readers.
But it requires you to sign up just to post a question. This pretty much kills it for those that don’t want to sign up. (there are a lot of us out there)
I realize that the commenting structure on Widgetslab is somewhat similar with required “name” and “email” fields…but there is no need to verify your info and I surely won’t sell your info. (Not that Mahalo will do this either…I’m positive they won’t) but it just feels too much like “another registration”.
I realize that it requires you to have a Google account and in that it is similar to many other “services” but the difference here is…there’s a greater chance that you (the reader) already have some type of Google account.
Seriously..this movie trailer widget rocks! The trailers load fast and play clean and clear.
Utilize the simple switcher in the top right to cycle throught the current trailers for upcoming flicks. Move over to the left to search out older trailers.
The widget has access to an extensive movie trailer library that is provided by TrailerAddict.com I just watched an original trailer for Pink Floyd the Wall. This actually stirred some memories I thought were long lost.
Ming, I see that Trailer Addict doesn’t have their own widget. Hmmmmmmm?
The code is written. The widget is complete. The idea you started with is neatly contained in the world’s greatest widget. Now you just have to figure out how to get it to everybody.
Part 4) – Deploying the widget.
Since widgets are “portable pieces of code” you have to find a way to give this to all of your future fans. Easy right? Since the widget is just normally an HTML or Javascript snippet you can just trust that would be widget users know how to grab the code and embed it on their site. Not Exactly.
The first step in deploying your widget is creating a web site. The web site should at the very least allow potential widget owners to know what the widget does and allow then to copy the embed code. An example of a very simple widget site is the very first widget I developed, www.JunkIWant.com. JunkIWant is a Amazon wishlist widget. No Logins. Nothing fancy. Just a website that gives clear instructions on how to grab the widget code.
However, you can’t be certain that just because you supply the HTML/Javascript that a blog owner will know how to grab the code and embed it into their site. This is where widget galleries and widget dashboards help out.
Widget galleries are sites like www.widgetbox.com and www.widgipedia.com. These sites allow you to upload your widget and gives widget users an easy interface to grab the widget code. There is a slight learning curve on uploading your widget, but each site has FAQs and forums to help you along. The galleries also allow you to track widget installs and some domain specific stats. They also showcase your widget in various galleries throughout the web. For instance, www.widgetbox.com partners with many of the larger social sites like Picazo and Bebo.
The only drawback with gallery sites is that they take widget users away from your web page.
Widget dashboards are sites that like www.clearspring.com and www.gigya.com. These sites differ from the gallery sites since they give you a widget dashboard to put on your own site. The dashboard simplifies the embedding process with a very easy to use interface to grab the widget. They also provide widget tracking and domain specific stats. The proccess is pretty simple to add the dashboard to your site (the dashboards are widgets in their own right). I actually use the www.gigya.com dashboard (Wildfire) on one of my widget sites, www.MyVGift.com.
clearspring dashboard
Widget galleries and widget dashboard sites greatly enhance the ability to deploy and distribute widgets. And the best part all of the distribution tools mentioned are free to use.
So knock yourself out. You spent alot of time on your widget. You should use every tool available to make it as easy for your potential users to get a hold of your widget.
Ok, this is a very easy and quick one. how about a single widget startpage?. what kind of widget would it have?. there is a response to both questions and it can be answered with StyckyScreen.org.
A Notepad Widget.
Yes. a yellow Notepad Widget. like the ones in the sticky notepads known as post its. hence the name.
A simple and useful idea you can use as your startpage or as one of your startpages if you are used to set multiple tabs when you load up your browser. but a note pad widget is nice for quick reminders, work notes or even inspirational quotes if you are into that to start every day. because right now it is pretty well known that one of the first 3 apps you launch when you start using your computer is your browser.
I for example used it to give me this reminder and it worked like a charm….
Stumble this!
