'Net Features : widgets

Developers' Toolkit Released for jQuery and HTML5

Linc Wonham — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:00:00 GMT

ComponentOne has released of a kit of UI widgets for HTML5 and jQuery development. The centerpiece of the release – called Wijmo – is the data visualization widgets that include more HTML5 chart types and new HTML5 gauges.

Wijmo extends jQuery UI and provides everything from interactive menus to rich charts. This v2 release offers over 40 widgets with many enhancements to existing widgets.

“This is the most complete collection of tools a Web developer may access for creating interactive websites and applications,” says ComponentOne product manager Chris Bannon. “The power of HTML5 is harnessed in the Wijmo collection and with it your Web applications will perform faster, run smoother and be more engaging than ever before.”

Wijmo.com has a live demo that lets visitors explore every widget and highlights the specific features of each. In the Grid Demo, which displays the source code used to create it, ComponentOne shows how the Wijmo Grid surfaces the filtering UI for each column of data.

Users may choose from one of the six professionally designed themes included with Wijmo, from over 30 themes from the jQuery UI project or use ThemeRoller from jQuery UI to create a custom theme to develop a consistent look and feel throughout an application.

Wijmo is split into two kits, with Wijmo Complete being a commercial kit filled with powerful application building widgets like charts and grids and Wijmo Open being completely free and open-source under the MIT/GPL licenses and includes menus, calendars and more.

Both kits ensure that the UI created works in every browser and every device without worrying about compatibility issues. Wijmo widgets support the following browsers: IE6+, Firefox 3+, Safari 3+, and Chrome.

ShareThis Social Tool Gets Big Update

Mike Phillips — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:59:00 GMT

ShareThis, the popular social sharing widget, has released an update that is currently in beta. The biggest upgrade is the ability for users to share a page's content to more than one destination simultaneously. With a single click, users can share your content via email, Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Tumblr, LinkedIn and more. This added convenience for the user could be significant - anything that makes content sharing easier should also be on publishers' radars.

Also included in the update is the ability for users to share content without ever leaving your website and the incorporation of custom themes and colors. In the works are updated plugins for Wordpress, Blogger and Typepad. ShareThis claims nearly one million websites use the tool.

You can see an example of the new widget functionality below, and vist the ShareThis website for more details and to test it out.

ShareThis Upgrades, Gets More Interactive

Mike Phillips — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:12:00 GMT

ShareThis, one the Web's leading content sharing widgets just got some new upgrades, and they are substantial.

Stream is a real-time view of what's being shared across the Web through the ShareThis community. Think of it like Google's scrolling real-time search results box or a stream of Facebook updates. For now, it's only on the ShareThis website, but will soon be a customizable, embeddable widget for websites and available with an API. See how ShareThis Stream works.

New share buttons are more customizable. Publishers can now remove particular networks from the ShareThis options for users. Don't want your content shared through Twitter, but prefer Facebook? That can be accomodated. It's a nice way for publishers to control where the conversations about their content is taking place, or even to run A/B tests to find what networks are of most value.

Related content on the Done screen. After a user shares content, ShareThis will now display related content from your site on the user's screen. It's a nice way to keep the ball rolling, and hopefully get users to keep sharing your content.

"See what your friends are sharing" will also be featured on the Done screen. If users click on these links, they will be directed to the ShareThis Stream, filtered by your content.

Social sign in - users can sign in prior to sharing via their Facebook, Twitter, Google and Yahoo! profiles. It's a growing trend on the Web and facilitates sharing well beyond the ShareThis community and strictly personal contacts.

Integration with Twitter OAuth allows for a more direct way to share content with Twitter.

In addition to these updated ShareThis is also planning to include Google Buzz in the near future, among other features.

A few quick notes about ShareThis, and why publishers should actively promote the service on their websites:

According to their website, ShareThis reaches more than 400 million users across 130,000 different websites.
What might be most significant about social sign in is that it could open ShareThis to an entirely new set of users - one that is accustomed to sharing content and likely doesn't yet know about or use ShareThis. While it's a powerful tool, it has yet to catch on with many Web users. That could change very quickly if an audience as large as Facebook catches on.
ShareThis can be integrated with Google Analytics and has Influence Insights, their own analytics service. Even if your content is not spread widely through ShareThis, these analytics can show where your content has the most potential to be shared. That's good to know.

Click to sign up for the beta release of these new features and access to the API.

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eBay and WidgetBox Collaborate on RSS Feed Widget

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:26:00 GMT

eBay's affiliate/publisher network has buddied up with Widgetbox to give eBay partners the ability to create custom widgets from any eBay RSS feed. The new functionality was launched this past Wednesday (September 9th, 2009).

eBay Partners will be able to take an eBay RSS product feed and turn it into a widget using WidgetBox's Blidget or Blidget pro widget editor. The benefit to partners is that they will be able to choose from different layouts, backgrounds, patterns, colors and headers but will need to have an account at WidgetBox to take advantage of those features.

The new RSS widget functionality works for all eBay programs on eBay Partner Network in all countries.

On another widget related affiliate note, Amazon launched a few new enhancements to its Associates program. Associates will be able to create widgets (using My Favorites, Slideshow and the Carousel) from Listmania and do so from the Associates Site Stripe.

Stay up to date on the latest Internet trends:
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Example of the eBay widget building tool:

Simple: RadarURL Widgets and Stats

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:10:00 GMT

There are a few problems with analytics solutions as they stand today for newer Web professionals. Most don't really want to do a lot of investigation to see who has visited their site, but more importantly, most analytics packages don't give you an idea of how many users are on the site (or an individual page) at any given moment. That's why, when I see one, I like to share it with the wider Web community.

RadarURL.com offers gives an easy way to monitor online visitors. While traditional statistics/analytics packages provide loads of in-depth information, it's rarely in real-time - something which RadarURL does and does pretty well. Website owners place the RadarURL widget on their page, and an image is loaded every time someone visits the page where the code is located. This enables RadarURL to count and keep track of your page's visitors, provide statistics about which pages are being visited and where the users are coming from at any moment in time.

Information gathered from the widget (quantity, country of origin, page being visited) and more can be seen on the advanced statistics page that anyone can view by clicking the actual widget itself. While not the most robust analytics or statistics solution, it is pretty entertaining.

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A Blogger's Dream: PRTube

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:40:00 GMT

One of my favorite press release distrubution services, PRLeap, announced last week the launch of PRTube, a way to embed, share and track press releases on any blog or website.

"PRTube takes the social media press release to the next level by allowing anyone to embed the press release on their website, blog or social network profile, making it viral," said Merrick Lozano, co-founder of Condesa, the company behind PRLeap.

Using Adobe Flash, PRTube is essentially an embeddable press release viewer. Where the system will really stand out is in its statistics and tracking capabilities. PRTube features real-time monitoring and tracking, allowing a Web marketer or publicist to see where the press release has been embedded and how many times it has been viewed. This is in addition to the web analytics already available on prleap.com.

For bloggers looking for content, finding it through PRLeap and displaying it through the PRTube interface might be a good option.

PRTube.com is scheduled to be launched as a separate platform and set of tools in the spring 2009, although it's available now within all PR accounts and in distribution of all press releases.

PayPal Storefront Widgets Rock

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:45:00 GMT

Always on the looking for ways that small businesses can easily sell products online, I came across a PayPal Labs widget which provides just that functionality.

The PayPal widget (beta) lets anyone easily create an online store and deploy it through straight HTML on an existing website, on MySpace or on a Typepad blog.

Users create their storefront by selecting their themes/colors, inputting their title/logo and store policies, upload products, set prices, and start selling. Couple the ease of storefront creation with a very fast checkout process and a simple payment process, and you have a genuine solution for success.

Quintura Site Search Enhanced For Publishers

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:06:00 GMT

Site search provider and semantic search engine Quintura released several new features for their publishing affiliates this week. If you're looking to add a dynamic widget to your site (and monetize it), this one's for you.

The cloud image interface that Quintura has pioneered now lets publishers embed brand logos as well as advertisements. When users mouse over an icon or search term, it expands into a banner which could increase click-through rates. Quintura has also added the ability for publishers to add customizable special effects to the images, including blinking icons.

Quintura is also working on its language localization. Quintura has added French, Italian and Spanish morphology engines, in addition to the existing English, German, Portuguese, and Russian systems, which should aid in producing more contextually accurate search results in a variety of languages and locations.

Caspio Widgets Boost Interaction

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:00:00 GMT

One of the problems I have with deploying widgets on websites is that they are more often than not a tool which promotes and offers value to the service providing the widget more than the website displaying it on their site. There are of course many exceptions, but that raw number pales in comparison to the number of self-serving widgets available.

DIY database and application creation system Caspio, however, has developed a suite of web apps for public or intranet sites which provides a great deal of value to users. All of the apps are free for Caspio Bridge users.

- The Website Marketing Suite is an app that offers page ratings, newsletter subscriptions, page emailing, contact management and news announcements.

- The Membership Management app offers an end-to-end user registration system that supports unlimited members and self-registration.

- The Lead Generation app offers users an opportunity to collect leads from a website and assign them to staff for follow up. Users can deploy one or more web forms, view status, schedule follow-ups and strone internal notes.

Amazon Page Recommender Widget

Administrator — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 07:39:00 GMT

Amazon keeps cranking out the widgets; fortunately for Amazon Associates they continue to be relevant and useful in relation to generating revenue.

Amazon today announced the release of the Page Recommender Widget which displays links to other pages on your site and links to Amazon products. Sort of like the best of both worlds, right? Using Amazon's sophisticated recommendation technology, visitors will be more engaged with your content and spend more time on the site and all while increasing the chances you have of generating referral fees on products.

Custom Widget Galleries: Widgetbox

Administrator — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:03:00 GMT

Big time widget community Widgetbox (70,000 widgets and 45 million unique monthly viewers on over 929,000 domains) has released some new features and increased support for its Custom Galleries. Online networks across the will be able to offer personalized widget options for their users.

"Widgetbox sits at a crossroads where the most important resources are converging to take the widget market from experimentation to realization," said Will Price, CEO of Widgetbox. "Widget access, choice and reach are no longer simply desired by networks and advertisers; these are requirements for a maturing market. With Custom Galleries by Widgetbox, our partners can meet these requirements quickly and easily -- and they can do so anywhere on the web, not just on Facebook."

Experian Launches Business Info Widget

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:36:00 GMT

Information services company Experian (yes, that Experian) announced the launch of a widget that includes business information from the company's BizSource database. Designed for directory and local search websites, the embeddable GUI displays business information in real time. The information that is included is the same that appears in Experian's BizCheck reports, which offer a summary of business information and includes a simple credit rating system. Not only does the widget display facts about the company including years in business and address history, but also important information such as potential problem areas like lines, judgments or bankruptcies.

With a simple mouse-over or click, consumers are shown a snapshot of a specific product, item or service-provider of interest that may include financial background, professional product reviews, possible judgments, as well as the swirl of user-generated comments and ratings as provided in other JS-Kit web services. The exact content will depend on the object itself. For example, the info on a plumbing contractor might contain financial background, bond and judgments information from Experian, while a stereo or car might show a snapshot of J.D. Power's product report for that item.

"This groundbreaking tool is the first of its kind to link Web searching to a major business database, like BizSource, in real time," said Alan Edgett, director of Strategy and Innovation for Experian's Business Information Services. "By leveraging this technology, we are able to provide our valuable business information to the general public at no cost, enabling them to conduct more effective Web searches."

Get Busy Sharing, Or Get Busy Dyin'

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:32:00 GMT

So you've got page after page of amazing products/content, right? You probably also have a few of those widgets to help users share that content with their friends and colleagues, be it through email or across social networks. It is your responsibility (the Web professionals) to help users share information with others. The benefits are that your message, product, etc. gets additional reach into an audience that by all accounts is qualified as it comes from a trusted counterpart - their friends.

There are many services which facilitate this sharing - ShareThis being perhaps the most popular currently. Another which is making the rounds of the Web this week is Siphs - a Web-based service which enables its users to share and tag any and all Web pages at your site. It's perfect for template-driven websites such as WordPress but it can work with pretty much anything if you don't mind some tweaking.

Siphs works very well - I've tried a few similar services which always seem to be buggy at best. When a visitor clicks the Siphs "Share" link, they are directed to an intermediary page with different sharing options (email, social networks such as Digg, Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, etc.). For the Feedburner folks in the house, there is also a FeedFlare - you can see it on action on the Website Magazine Feedburner XML page (just look for the 'Email this' link at the end of each post).

So what's all this sharing going to cost you? There is a free version of Siphs (which is what Website Magazine is using) that enables you to do some decent branding and receive some helpful reports. If you want to take it up a notch, the upgraded plans (between $100 and $200) are very reasonable for the functionality you'll get.

A Blog Widget That Pays - Finally

Administrator — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:00:00 GMT

One of the real issues I have with widgets is that they are not the most thoughtful solutions for those of us with our eye on the real prize - revenue. Many bloggers rush to test out each and every 2.0 widget that comes down the virtual highway and many weblogs and website over time become inundated with rather useless, poor performing utilities that do little more than take up space. Take a look at your own weblog - has that happened to you?

7Search.com announced by email this morning a widget that by all accounts does not fit the typical 2.0 mold. It's less about collaboration than it is giving Web workers the opportunity to generate income. The SearchAdRoll is a collection of sponsored keyword links and phrases (similar to a blogroll) that affiliates can placed anywhere (weblog, website, social network, e.g. MySpace). Each time a website visitor clicks a link, a search return list is generated in a new window. When that user selects one of the sponsored listings they get paid. Pretty simple by all accounts but a real game changer.

Selecting the right keywords will be an important part of SearchAdRoll. Fortunately 7Search has made the process pretty foolproof. For example, submit a keyword like "marketing" for your SearchAdRoll and when a user clicks the payout is $0.26-$0.50, but take 7Search's suggestion and choose internet marketing instead and you could be earning double that ($0.51-$1.00) per click on an advertisers listing. By recommending additional/alternative terms and phrases based on traffic volume and aligning those terms with the highest potential payout, affiliates can be sure they will always receive the most revenue possible.

See an example of the SearchAdRoll in the right-hand sidebar of this weblog.

Tool of the Day: Gydget

Mike Phillips — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:55:00 GMT

Gydget is a new tool that lets you create a quick feed of your company's important news, blogs, events, video and more and embed the widget on the site of your choosing or, even better, have other people embed the widget to promote your site. You could also use it to cross-promote your other sites or happenings.

From the look of their website it was intended to be a tool for musicians or personal use (hence the Buy Music and Store buttons), but there is some potential here for businesses. Gydget also makes it easy to publish your widget with a variety of social websites with the click of a button, but the code will allow you to publish just about anywhere. You can also import data (such as events or video) directly from MySpace profiles. Check out the Website Magazine Gydget on our MySpace page in the About Me section, which took about 20 minutes to create.