Creating a Slidecast with Slideshare is a great way to integrate PowerPoint presentations and audio tracks. The end result is a more powerful presentation that can easily be shared multiple different ways.
Emailing this presentation couldn’t be easier. just click on the email icon at the bottom of your Slidecast, enter your name and the email address of the intended recipient and click send. There is also a handy URL provided for pasting into an IM.
Slidecasting is a new multimedia format for viewing slide decks synchronized with an audio file. It is for conference talks, musical slideshows, audio picture books or whatever else you can imagine.
Shutterfly.com is a photosharing/scrapbooking paradise. Their unique “photobook” creation tools allow you to create some seriously cool scrapbook style, embeddable photo albums.
You can choose to have colorful backgrounds or just cover entire pages with photos. Some templates even allow for nesting smaller photos within larger photos. Did I mention that you can also create “share sites” where your friends and family can download photos. Also available is the ability to purchase gifts with photos printed directly on them. Mugs, ornaments, mousepads, even large artist style canvas wall hangings. There are actually too many to mention here. Check out “Photo Gifts”
There are seemingly endless options for creating your Scrapbook photobook.
Fotopedia.com is a photo hosting service with a downloadable app (Windows & Mac) that allows you to create a customizable slideshow widget that you can embed into your blog or website.
1. Sign-up at Fotopedia.com
2. Download the application, Windows or Mac.
3. Create a gallery. On a mac this process was simple, all I had to do was drag and drop my photos from iPhoto.
4. Use the Actions menu to create a new Widget. You’ll be redirected to Fotopedia.com where you can customize your options.
5. Copy and paste the HTML snippet provided to your website and your done.
Rumor is that you can hook your flickr account to fotopedia and display your flickr sets in the fotopedia widget as well.
It was about time!. Flickr finally released a official Slide Show Widget. pass solutions have been embedding the regular Flickr Flash Slide Show into an iFrame. something that many used to do because they wanted an official Flickr SlideShow widget instead of third party solutions that server their own widgets and that there are many to choose from.
The Look
The new Flickr SlideShow Widget sports a look redesign very much at home with the Flickr Video Player. this is of course a good thing since it is a really cool design. the design for it as many know was ripped off directly from Vimeo. the design i still considerate to be one of the best video player designs ever. Flickr version of this design is of course as good as the original and they extended it into the Flickr SlideShow Embeddable Widget with great results.
The Design
The New Flickr Widget is done in flash and it shows how a photo slide show widget should not only look but how it should work. it got a hover activated preview thumbnails bar for navigation and it offers a little snapshot preview when you hover on the preview thumbnails. it got prev and next indicators in the main view screen too.
The Experience
The Best thing about it is that it is not just a SlideShow Widget, but a actual Multi Media Player Widget and you can play the flickr videos in the photostream. it comes with a full screen with controls option right in the widget. what i think is a total must have now because it makes it a truly portable experience. the widget also shows a very prominent and easy to see “share†option that gives you the URL for the Photostream and the embed code for the widget. so it is fully capable of serving quick sharing. this is of course a standard and it should not only be expected but demanded as the bare minimum a widget of ANY kind should have. the fact that it is flash already states by itself that it can be put almost anywhere.
Conclusion
The New Embeddable SlideShow Widget from Flcikr is without a doubt one of the best Slide Show Widgets ever done. it looks incredible. it got a excellent User Interface and User Experience. i think that the only things i could nitpick at it, would be the fact that it should already come with a High Spread Sharing module within the Widget instead of just Quick Sharing. that the transition to Full Screen is not swift and that the performance while at Full Screen downgrades significantly. this is of course not Flickr fault since it is more a thing of the common shortcomings Flash still has. it would be truly interesting to me to see a recreating of this Widget in Silverlight and see how the experiences compare. that alone would be a good way to get into developing a widget.
Other than those 3 little details, the widget is truly great.
Picwing is a very simple photo service that allows you to upload pictures by emailing them to the service or loading them up thanks to a desktop app. that is of course not all. the service focus is to be almost a real time photo album aggregator that can put those photos into several places as soon as they are uploaded. one of those places is into a Internet Enabled Photo Frame they also sell and where their monetization comes from.
The other options are Widgets:
1.-Desktop
A widgetized cross platform desktop app done in AIR that can be used in PC, Mac and Linux given the simple nature of the application. this app allows you to do several simple functions like comment into the photos, download them, view them and uploaded them by dragging the pictures in the photo frame widget.
2.-Chumby
The also got a Chumby Widget you can load into your Chumby Device. The Chumby is a internet enabled devices that serves up Widgets.
3.-Web Widget
A simple Automatic SlideShow of your PicWing Photo Album you can put wherever it fits for you and that will load up your Photo Album for all to see. that also includes the pictures you add from the desktop.
Conclusions
The simple nature of the service makes it easy to use for everyone. a great way to share pictures with friends or family with or without a computer. also a good way to have a conversation around the photos thanks to the desktop app. it can also serve other uses like being able to attend an event, take pictures, send them after taking them to your PicWing –mail address and know they will be added to your picwing photo widget right away for all to see.
Widgets Lab is a blog dedicated to finding and reviewing widgets of all types. People are always asking "what are widgets?" Well in this case widgets are simply bits of code that you can add to your blog, web site or community profile. (as in MySpace and others) Also widgets can be downloaded to work with a 'Parent' application such as Mac Dashboard or Yahoo! widgets. You can see another definition for web widgets on Wikipedia/web widget.
