On Widgets and Widths

I really enjoyed reading this fascinating Q&A on the recommended width for blog widgets, which quickly evolved into a broader discussion on widgets:

Blog widget standard width?

I am building a new widget that will be added by users to various blogging systems (blogger, WordPress, TypePad, MySpace, etc), most likely in the sidebar.

I am not sure what's the right way to go with regards to the widget width - should I design it to accomodate different widths, or is there a "standard widget width" I should assume?

Is there a minimal width that I can expect?

Topics: internet, software, development, wordpress, blog, myspace, widgets, widget, typepad

Asked by Jmm on November 27, 2006

View the entire discussion on Yedda

Excellent answers from Derek Anderson, from the Widgets Lab blog:

Blog widget standard width?

Jmm, (this may be long)

You are correct that Bloggers "expect it to work"

Yedda widgets resize to fit in the area they are placed in. This is a cool feature that I don't remember seeing anywhere else. However, I think that some users will want to be able to control this feature. Lets say TechCrunch wants to do an article featuring a Yedda widget. They may not want it to expand to fill the posting area. They want it to look like it would appear in a side bar.

Branding

While deciding what to post i came up with the idea of creating a Grazr widget that pointed to a specific RSS feed. In this case it was The Blogging Times.com

I titled the post "The Blogging Times mashed widget"

My bright idea was to add the code for this widget to the post I was contemplating writing. This way anyone that wanted The Blogging Times content on their blog could easily have it. (I just wanted to mash something other than potatoes)

Grazr.com saw this post and decided to take it one step further by adding the "The Blogging Times" logo to the widget.

This kinda gives the impression that TBT has a widget. (even though they don't)

This is what I meant by branding.

Feedback

I do not recall any widgets that have this feature.

We, as creators, are sometimes blinded by what we create. (does that make sense?)

Feedback isn't just for bug reporting. It's also for ideas. Widget users have great ideas for functions that widget creators didn't even consider. Get enough feedback about a certain feature...You see where this is going.

Enough of the longest answer in the world. If you made it this far...let me ask you a question...How many times did you yawn during this post?

Derek

Topics: internet, software, development, wordpress, blog, myspace, widgets, widget, typepad

Answered by deralaand on November 28, 2006

View the entire discussion on Yedda

Good stuff!

edgeio

Michael Arrington from TechCrunch provides early details on edgeio, the aptly-named startup he co-founded with Keith Teare. Actually, due to the conflict of interest, Michael is just providing the links to coverage on edgeio by BussinessWeek Rob Hof. Additional details and manifest are available on the edgeio blog.

From the edgeio blog first post:

We will find edge published listings if they include the category or tag "listing" within the post or content. The listings will be indexed through the blog's RSS or Atom feed and aggregated with other "listings from the edge". Users of the edgeio service will be able to search through listings and communicate directly with the publisher. Edgeio will also make aggregated listings available though a web service to other Internet sites and services that would like to include edge listings.

Turns out Frank Gruber's early guesses were right on spot!

I love the idea, aggregating classified listings from "the edge". Given the unstructured nature of these listings, filtering may prove to be a challenge though. The Structured Blogging effort, spearheaded by PubSub, might prove to be very valuable in overcoming this challenge.

Early (unauthorized?) screenshots are available on Pandorasquared, and look pretty interesting. Clean, focused experience.

The customary register-for-beta is provided at www.edgeio.com.

Technorati : blog, classified, edgeio, listing, microformats, social, web2.0
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Practicalities and lists

Lots of lets-talk-about-how-it-really-works posts in the last few days. Maybe it's part of cleaning the house for 2006.

Michael Arrington posted "Don't Blow Your Beta" on Techchrunch. This is especially valuable coming from someone who's been exposed to a lot of betas recently. Useful and practical if you're at the point where you're designing your own beta process.

Guy Kawasaki followed up on his "The Top Ten Lies of Venture Capitalists" with "The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs". My favorite is actually #11, the bonus lie:

All we have to do is get 1% of the market.

And to complete the list-of-ten, Guy also posted a list of 9 truths about the art of innovation. Excellent stuff.

It's interesting to note where Guy's list conflicts with Michale's list :)

Hugh Macleod followed up with his Top Ten Blogger Lies. Hey, these ads really were just an experiment :)

Technorati : beta, blog, list, top ten, vc, web2.0
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Oh, baby, baby it's a TagWorld

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch reported on TagWorld - a new uber-tagging service. Their vision, from the About page:

build the Social Web by providing a unified set of easy-to-use, web-based services that will let users create and engage in a more meaningful, social experience

Also:

TagWorld sees five fundamental components for building out this new social web infrastructure: people, photos, blogs, tags and storage.

They do a pretty good job at providing an integrated, do-it-all experience, with a slick(er) user interface. The free-form tagging interface is still somewhat lacking to my taste. They have a cool tag-by-selecting-from-a-tag-cloud user interface in some of the areas. Bookmarks, like pretty much everything else, can be tagged as public or private.

The search experience is real pleasure though. A slidebar for indicating the number of results you'd like to see at once. Thumbnails of the web sites in your bookmarks.

The service has a strong "mass consumer" flavor to it. Also, it seems to be one of the only Web 2.0 services developed using .NET technology, and not LAMP. No, I'm not hinting at a connection between the two facts. Almost not all :)

Technorati : MichaelArrington, blog, bookmark, delicious, flickr, search, social, tag, tagging, tagworld, user interface, web2.0
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More Big.Blue.Licious

Also, Internetnews.com reported on more from IBM: "Public Image Monitoring Solution" monitors and analyzes blogs, wikis, news feeds, consumer review sites, newsgroups and other community-generated content to allow corporations and brands to keep tabs on their image.

Also, personal lesson of the day: don't blog while cooking.

Technorati : blog, ibm, wiki
Del.icio.us : blog, ibm, wiki

The IM Generation

CNET reported on an America Online-commissioned study of instant messaging trends.

"Nearly 66 percent of 13- to 21-year-olds say they send more IMs than e-mails, compared with 49 percent last year, according to an America Online-commissioned study of instant messaging trends.

... Overall, 38 percent of users say they send as many or more IMs than e-mails.

... About 80 million people in the U.S. regularly use IM"

CNET also reports on a new study from IDC:

"about 1 billion IMs sent every day between 28 million enterprise users."

New study from PEW:

"Fully half of all teens and 57% of teens who use the internet could be considered Content Creators. They have created a blog or webpage, posted original artwork, photography, stories or videos online or remixed online content into their own new creations.

... 19% of online youth ages 12-17 have created their own blog.

... 7% of adult internet users say they have created their own blog."

I still (vaguely) remember what the BITNET TELL and RELAY screens looked like, and I'm not that old. I think.

These 13-21 years old are and becoming more and more so our users.

Technorati : IM, bitnet, blog, cnet, e-mail, idc, instant messaging, pew
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10 Issues Facing Web 2.0 Today

Dion Hinchcliffe posted a wonderful completly subjective list of "10 Issues Facing Web 2.0 Today".

#8: Blogging Instead of Doing. :)

Technorati : DionHinchcliffe, blog, blogging, web2.0
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