A friend of mine asked me if I knew of any good job-finding widgets. The question sent me on a search.
The first one I found was a winner:the Simply Hired widget. It has all the essentials for good, easy job searching.
The widget allows you to search for jobs using your choice of search words in any U.S. location. You can assign any mileage radius around that location, and to search the entire U.S., just leave the location and radius fields empty. The widget saves your searches so you can access any of your searches quickly form the Menu button.
The widget is based on the same job search engine used at the simplyhired.com site.
See a real-world example of the widget in my sidebar on the right-hand-column of this page. Feel free to use it. And good luck with your job search.
P.S. Don’t miss the “Panic” button.
Pros: Not only embeddable to Web pages, but can also be installed as a desktop widget. Cons: Search is currently limited to the U.S. only. Canada is said to be added soon. It’s not clear that you can single-click any search result to open it. It’s also not clear that to get the desktop widget, after downloading the SpringWidgets platform, you need to find the Simply HIred widget in their Widget Gallery, click the Options button and select the Desktop icon. Coolness factor: 4/5 Platform required: None, if it will be used on a Web page. As a desktop widget, requires the SpringWidgets downloadable platform (see below). Get the Web-based widget from SpringWidgets: here Get the desktop-based platform and widget from SpringWidgets: here
The AOL Developer Network this morning posted a YouTube video of Alex Bard giving a 3–minute interview that nicely summarizes several viral widget principles.
Bard is a co-founder of Goowy Media, which, among other things, developed the yourminis start page. This past February Goowy was purchased by AOL. Under Bard, yourminis has developed into one of the largest widget platforms in the marketplace today.
In this video, made at the recent web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, Bard summarizes several widget bullet points, including “elegant” monetization and a definition of “viral.”
This is definitely must-see. If you have buffering problems watching it on this site, you can see it here, on YouTube’s site.
A free 60–minute webinar by AMR Research, entitled “The Platform Revolution – A Look Into Disruptive Technologies” is scheduled for May 15.
The presentation will explain not only what AMR Research means by “disruptive technology,” but also offer insights on some of these concepts below and how they relate to product marketing:
• The Four Pillars of Disruptive Technology • User 2.0 • Zero-install scenario • Cloud-based Architecture
We know that widgets are playing a huge role in this so-called Platform Revolution, so it will be quite interesting to see what the webinar will have to say on their role in the new world of Disruptive Technologies.
Date: Wednesday, May 15 Time: 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. EDT More information about the webinar can be found here.
Clearspring’s Jodi McDermott today published an article on one of Clearspring’s metrics named Active Placements.
The metric measures the count of a widget’s placements that have been viewed at least once during a specified time period.
This metric, when combined with the number of times the widget is grabbed and the number of times the widget is installed, can show a widget’s “staying power.”
“As widgets are grabbed and placed on web sites, their staying power is where the impact of the widget really shines,” says McDermott.
You can read the entire article on Jodi’s Widget Analytics blog here.
There are still a thick handful of analog publications we rely on, including Newsweek, which lands in our snail mail box every Tuesday.
If you’re like us, we first flip through the pages to find one of our favorite Newsweek features: “Conventional Wisdom.”
Conventional Wisdom offers a take on the hottest newsmakers and headline grabbers in the worlds of entertainment, media, politics, news, business… the world at-large. Newsweek calls it a “distillation of the ever-changing thinking of beltway pundits and the chattering classes.”
But there’s no need to thumb through magazine pages to find it.
Just use the widget, fresh with daily “wisdom” and ready to install.
And if conventional wisdom is not your interest, Newsweek offers several other widgets that provide coverage on discreet areas, such as technology and science, health, international news and top ten stories of the week.
Pros: Easy to install to a number of social sites or embeddable to a Web page.
Cons: Not available as a desktop widget, unless you use a tool like Amnesty Cube to convert it to desktop form.
Coolness factor: 4/5
Engine required: None. Can be “uploaded” to a large number of social sites, or embedded into any web page.
This story was reported by Dan Farber last night on Webware.
“Netvibes, a developer of customizable start pages, plans to make its widget platform, application programming interfaces, and iPhone version open source,” according to CEO Tariq Krim.
Right now, Opera is the only browser that has its own built-in widget platform. Not only that, the platform is a breeze to work with.
Widget lovers should seriously consider ditching their current browsers (Firefox, IE, Safari, etc.) and take a look at the Opera browser.
You want to search for a widget? Just click the Widgets menu that is built right into Opera’s main toolbar!
The “Add widgets” menu opens to Opera’s impressive Widgets page (below) of more than 1,200 instantly available widgets.
You are officially in widget heaven.
When you find the widget you want, you only need to click the “Launch” button below the widget’s picture.
The widget opens instantly to your desktop.
Resize your new widget, move it around, configure it, play with it. It’s that simple!
Plus, in addition to this seamless widget platform, the Opera browser is generally considered to be the fastest browser on the market today. That has certainly been my experience.
Also, there are some major Opera widget features in the works. New widgets are currently being developed for: (See here for more details.)
• Mobile devices • TV and Set-Top Boxes • Consumer Electronics • Automotive & Transportation
Now, for some imortant caveats:
• You will not find every widget you want. You may have to search outside of Opera to get something special you are looking for.
• Almost all Opera widgets currently run only on the desktop. Only a select few of their widgets are currently embeddable into Web pages. Mobile widgets are in the works.
• When you close Opera, your widgets close also. (What I’ve been doing is minimizing Opera, and just using my widgets.)
P.S. The Opera widget platform includes development tools for creating custom widgets from scratch, i.e. not having to use widget templates, which is the case for some other “create your own widget” platforms. I’ll be creating some widgets in the coming days, and my next report on Opera widgets will about my widget-creating experiences and how Opera 9.5 beta 2, released just today, stacks up on the widget front. Stay tuned…
This morning chip giant Intel publicly rolled out Mash Maker, a browser plugin that allows users to easily customize any Web page by clicking and inserting widgets onto the page.
The question is why would Intel enter this arena, when similar mash tools, like Yahoo! Pipes and Microsoft Popfly, have been out for a while?
Eariler this month, Intel VP of Research Andrew A. Chien presented a paper entitled, “Live Large; Everyday Sensing and Perception,” which described Intel’s “Carry Small, Live Large” research initiative.
This initiative focuses on Intel’s development of Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) that “will be more aware of their users and context in everyday activities and environments, with sensors and inference,” according to Chien.
At this presentation, Chien highlighted “a mobile-sensing platform, designed to act as a fitness device with a multitude of data-reporting,” which, he said, “fell under the banner of human activity recognition.” (See this article.)
So where does Mash Maker fit into all of this?
Mash Maker may be providing Intel with early data on human activity and environments. We note that Mash Maker cannot run without logging in the first time. It remembers your login after that. So, is Intel collecting our activity data, hoping to use it in its MID development?
The connection may be plausible, since during his MID presentation Chien referenced what became today’s release of Mash Maker.
Who isn’t talking about going green this Earth Week? It’s a hail storm of green-themed content everywhere we turn: events, print inserts, special features, blogs, mags, lists and advertising messages…the sheer volume is downright un-greenlike in its excess. Mass(ive) marketing!
If you’re looking for a widget to save our earth, well, the technology hasn’t advanced that far yet, though we wholly support and would enjoy the opportunity to report such innovation.
But if you want to go beyond green to full color today, there are several widgets that provide a mental respite from all that serious concern over your “101 Ways I’m Going to Save the Earth” checklist.
To start, engage with the Colorburn widget from Firewheel Design. Find colorful inspiration, whether you go green or not.
Or use the Canvas2 widget on WidgetBox to doodle in your favorite spray brush colors. (Don’t feel any peer pressure today to stick to green; innovate and create with these low-emission colors.)
Finally, if what you really seek is to duck the Al Gore eco-agenda and challenges for a later day, then the Yahoo! Rose-colored Glasses widget might be your best bet. It might make you mellower the next time you’re faced with paying $4 a gallon at the gas pump or having no A/C on a spare-the-air day.
P.S. To keep my own carbon footprint from spreading, I’m off on the bus to the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. Nuggets to follow…
Bitty Browser, from Bitty.com, is a miniature browser embedded into a Web page. It’s called Picture-in-Picture for the Web.
Why would you want to do something like this? Two good reasons:
1. As a marketer, you can distribute this widget with your brand set as the home page. Whenever the customer opens the page with the widget on it, your branded home page is right there.
2. As a user, you can do some quick browsing without leaving the page you’re already on.
It’s a win-win situation.
Play with my Bitty Browser here. It’s engaging and every time you come to this page, you’ll be seeing my brand.
Pros: Fully customizable; easy to install; can browse without leaving the page you’re on.
Cons: Marketers need to strategize distribution; too many linkbacks to bitty.com; for user, browsing can involve more scrolling than desirable.
Coolness factor: 4/5
Engine required: None. The widget is either uploaded to a social site or manually embeddable.
Widget security is a topic that seems to lurk in the background, not getting much attention. One example of this is the huge RSA Security Conference held last week in San Francisco. It did not have ANY panels on widget security.
A MacWorld article on widget security said,
“Widgets are owned by the user, and can do anything that a user can do. For instance, they can remove files from your home directory without asking permission. They can run anything from the command line that a user can. They can call any AppleScript that a user can.”
Yesterday, one of the W3C drafts on widgets stated that, “When compared to Web browsers, some market-leading widget user agents have a comparatively relaxed security model that allows an instantiated widget to read, write, modify, and/or delete files, automatically upload files, automatically download files, execute local applications, and even perform cross-domain request to “mash-up” data from multiple different sources. All without the end-user having any indication that their privacy and security might be at risk.” (Bold formatting is mine.)
So how does a typical user address this problem? Most of us look the other way and just click the “Install Widget” button. We are often told to only download software from sources that we trust. Well, who ARE you supposed to trust, and WHY?
I would very much like to hear your comments on and experiences with this issue. I’ll be writing more on this subject.
A notable step towards widget standardization took place
this morning.
W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium, today released four working drafts of standards for widgets. The Consortium, directed by Web pioneer Tim Berners-Lee, has already published more than 100 recommendations for Web technology standards.
The Consortium describes the four new documents as:
• 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
“This document (the Widget Landscape) surveys a group of market-leading widget user agents with the aim to inform the requirements of the [Widgets 1.0: Requirements] document. The survey exposes commonalities and fragmentation across widget user agents, and discusses how fragmentation currently affects, amongst other things, authoring, security, distribution and deployment, internationalisation and the device-independence of widgets,” according to the authors.
Ongoing comments and exchanges on the documents can be followed hereon Twitter.
Why are desktop widgets better than browser widgets?
For one, if you’re like me, when your browser accidentally (ahem) closes and all your embedded widgets are gone, you’d like to trash your browser forever.
And then you see your trusty ol’ desktop widgets and you just want to hug them. You might even ask yourself if there is any way to get your embedded browser widgets onto your desktop.
Enter AmnestyWidgets’ HyperCube. AmnestyWidgets is a division of Mesa Dynamics, a provider of Web-to-desktop widget conversion solutions. Hypercube, their flagship product, provides a platform for finding and installing desktop widgets. But the feature that I want to focus on here is its “Create Desktop Widget from Code” tool. This tool allows you to convert any embeddable widget code into a desktop widget. Pure MAGIC!
I tested its alpha version 0.25a for Windows XP. They also have versions for Vista and OS X.
I was able to create lovely desktop widgets from WidgetBox, yourminis and others. In fact, EVERY embeddable widget code I tried was very easily converted into its desktop equivalent.
The obvious caveat, at least for Windows XP users, is that this is alpha software. Yet the “Create Desktop Widget from Code” tool worked flawlessly for me.
Pros: You want to have any awesome embedded widget on your desktop? YOU GOT IT.
Cons: The XP version is alpha. The interface can be confusing, but WidgetAnalytics says that the next release will have an improved interface. If you use only the “Convert to Desktop” tool, like I do, you’ll be fine. Requires a platform installation, but what desktop widget doesn’t?
Using a MySpace widget, followers of the American “Idol Gives Back” fundraiser can continue donating to the drive, as well as enter a sweepstakes featuring a trip for 2 to the show’s finale and post-show party.
Although the show aired last night, the widget prolongs the ability to donate, and, as of this writing, has accounted for more than $40,000 USD in donations from MySpace members.
MySpace partnered with American Idol to encourage its members to donate and to share the widget with friends. The widget can process donations, and tracks real-time donations by MySpace members.
This morning Victor Harwood of Digital Hollywood released his video on YouTube of an all-star panel discussing “Widgets as a Platform,” part of the recent 2008 Media Summit in New York.
The video (below) is must-see viewing for anyone in the widget industry. Among the topics addressed by the panel are strategies for distributed content, thoughts on engagement, and whether widget marketing is a fad or not.
We have our Digg account, our Technorati account, we are in Facebook, Bebo, Reddit, del.icio.us, Netvibes, Blogs and on and on and on …
How do we keep track of it all? Well, one cool way would be to have a simple all-in-one widget that lists our 2.0 universe. You’d click one site in the list and there you go.
This is where the ShareYourself widget by Dustin Bachrach comes in. It does all of this PLUS your friends can see it and use it wherever you choose to put it.
Check out this list of where you can upload this widget: MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Orkut, Bebo, Tagged, Blogger, hi5, Live Space, Piczo, Freewebs, LiveJournal, BlackPlanet, myYearbook, WordPress, Vox, TypePad, Xanga, Multiply, iGoogle, Netvibes Pageflakes, MiGente, OR embed (copy/paste) the code wherever you want. That list is SWEET!
And bloggers- here’s another way you can have your readers check you out and connect with you in other places. Pros:
Installs in a breeze
Can include more than 20 of your 2.0 links, including your blog
Can add your own customized 2.0 link, if it’s not in the list
Can upload your widget to more than 20 social sites.
Only one small, unobtrusive share link at the bottom
Cons:
Embeddable code is large
Links open in same window, not a new window (this is fixable in the embedded code, if you want)
Coolness factor: 4/5 Engine required: None. Either upload to a social site, and/or embed the code into any Web page. Get the widget here: ShareYourself widget
MuseStorm is set to announce on Tuesday two major enhancements to its widget creation and syndication platform: the first-ever support for creating native Bebo applications, andinstant, cross-platform widget updating capabilities.
The enhanced platform will allow users — without having to rely on developers — to produce full-fledged, native Bebo applications.
In addition, the new platform has the ability to update widgets simultaneously. Users can make changes to any given widget and those changes will be ported across all platforms – Facebook, Bebo, Web, desktop or standalone applications.
These enhancements are rolled into the newly named “MuseStorm Engagement Platform” (MEP), which is built on the company’s existing end-to-end solution for widget creation and syndication. The platform includes a production studio (shown below) that allows non-technical users to create widgets, and analytics that show in-depth widget-interaction statistics.
MuseStorm co-founder Ori Soen says, “By offering customers a means to quickly and easily create Bebo widgets in addition to a wide range of other applications, as well as the ability to make simultaneous updates to widgets running on Web, desktop, Facebook and other applications, MuseStorm minimizes time spent creating widgets, and optimizes their benefits by letting our customers quickly and completely understand how their widgets are performing.”
Founded in 2005, MuseStorm is privately held and has offices in Sunnyvale, Calif. and Tel Aviv, Israel.
It all started this morning when my office mate, an ardent eBay watcher, said she’d like to have an eBay widget that would monitor her auction watch list.
I can’t resist a challenge, so here’s what I found.
The good:
• eBayAuction Watch by Ty Kroll (for iGoogle or Google Desktop)
• eBay by Patrick Vallaeys (for iGoogle or embedded in a Web page)
• My Ebay, aka eBay Auctions (for Netvibes)
Why good: They all automatically find and update your eBay watch list.
The bad:
• eBay To Go by eBay (only embeddable in a Web page)
• EbayWatch by Peter Maloy (for iGoogle or embedded in Web page)
• Ebay Watch Them (for Netvibes or embedded in a Web page)
Why bad: They all require you to manually enter the items you are watching.
The ugly:
•Official eBay Gadget (for iGoogle or embedded in a Web page)
Why ugly: It’s dead; does not work. And thousands of unsuspecting people are downloading this widget!
Runner up for ugly:Any eBay widget that does ONLY SEARCHES eBay (so lame, so sad)
I like history. I also like etymology. The origin and early growth of things, anything, fascinate me.
So when I saw Niall Kennedy’s “widget timeline,“ I spent a good 15 minutes soaking it in. I can’t vouch for its accuracy, and it may not be completely up-to-date, but it’s a very rewarding overview of widget history.
Make sure you play with and read all of the pop-ups. There’s a lot of useful information there. Thanks, Niall!
WidgetWebExpo, to be held in New York this June 16 and 17, has announced an amazing lineup of more than 20 widget topics, each one addressing critical issues and questions in the widget marketing arena.
Here is a summary list. Make sure you go here to get detailed descriptions and ongoing updates.
Day 1
Keynote: OpenSocial: Transport of Delights?
Show us the money!
The value of open social networks for widgets
Media Transformative
What does a widget campaign look like from an agency perspective?
Widgets promoting widgets
Widget platforms
Widgets as an expression of application interfaces
Are widget standards an oxymoron?
Can widgets eat your Web site?: security issues
Day 2
Keynote: Startups with widgets, widgets as startups
eCommerce in widgets
Mobile widgets
Widgets as adverts: How do we go from here to there?
Towards a long term widget strategy
Tracking widgets in the wild
Exploring the Web and desktop widget dichotomy
Social Meaning In A Fragmented World: Can we come together in a Web that’s exploding?
How we built a widget that can really interact with the users
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A friend of mine asked me if I knew of any good job-finding widgets. The question sent me on a search.
You want to search for a widget? Just click the Widgets menu that is built right into Opera’s main toolbar!
in your favorite spray brush colors. (Don’t feel any peer pressure today to stick to green; innovate and create with these low-emission colors.)
, provides a platform for finding and installing desktop widgets. But the feature that I want to focus on here is its “Create Desktop Widget from Code” tool. This tool allows you to convert any embeddable widget code into a desktop widget. Pure MAGIC!
MySpace partnered with 
These enhancements are rolled into the newly named “MuseStorm Engagement Platform” (MEP), which is built on the company’s existing end-to-end solution for widget creation and syndication. The platform includes a production studio (shown below) that allows non-technical users to create widgets, and analytics that show in-depth widget-interaction statistics.
MuseStorm minimizes time spent creating widgets, and optimizes their benefits by letting our customers quickly and completely understand how their widgets are performing.”
Standalone version: 
RSS
Digg/widgetBeat
Facebook/widgetBeat's Universe
Linkedin/amerkrebs
Twitter/widgetBeat
YouTube/widgetBeat
Del.icio.us/widgetBeat
GMail/widgetBeat's Universe
Technorati/widgetBeat
MyBlogLog/widgetBeat
Blog/widgetBeat's Universe