Do you feel like joining a contest? You might want to hear about the latest thing going on at Library Things, which is actually a widget contest. They recently released a group of new widgets, which I think are actually pretty cool. The widgets were released with predefined styles but the possibility of modifying them was also included. Given this, they are conducting a contest. Here are the rules:
• Submit your widgets to this Talk thread (http://www.librarything.com/topic/61668)
• Widgets can be of any type—as simple, complex, staid or way-out as you like. You can use your own CSS or JavaScript, but you certainly don’t have to.
• You can submit up to five widgets, but post only one message. Edit if you need to.
• If you want, share where you put the widget, or where you plan to.
• Go ahead and name your widgets, comment on what you were trying to do.
• Post the “Share with other LibraryThing members” link (e.g., this). Posting the script won’t work.
And what will you get for your efforts? If you win the people behind Library Things will choose your widget to be part of the standard set. Five members will also win memberships, which can be transferrable. There are other prizes at stake, so if I were you, I’d visit the blog and figure out what you need to do.
Oh, by the way, I think that you know that you need to know how to work around those codes, right?
In the past years, blogging has reached unprecedented heights. We can find blogs focusing on just about anything. Indeed, we can find blogs without any apparent focus at all. No matter, the fact is that blogging is something that is HUGE in every sense of the word.
One thing that I like about blogging is that you can do so much with the venue. Blogs are malleable and versatile that you can perform countless tweaks to make your own personal stamp on them. One way to do this would be to use widgets. More than personalizing the blog, however, widgets can actually be used for promotion and monetization. That is why I have been looking at some of the best and most useful Blogger widgets that I can find for my personal blog. Here are some ideas, which can help you in your search as well.
Most commented posts.
I have seen a lot of blogs with this information available in one of the sidebars. I think that it is a brilliant idea to showcase those posts which have received the most comments. In this way, you can attract more readers to those posts and hopefully get more comments in the process.
Related posts.
This widget is easier to find for Wordpress blogs, but I have been having a hard time finding a widget that works well with my Blogger blog. I think it is important to have a related posts widget since it helps your reader find other posts in your blog which may be of interest to them as well.
Tweet this.
Twitter is another phenomenon that has reached far and widget. If you want to reach more people, provide a widget that allows readers to tweet about your post – free advertising for you!
In this time of economic uncertainty, more and more people are once again returning to an old habit. That is, the use of coupons to make savings. In the old days, people would regularly buy the newspaper (especially the Sunday edition) so that they can spend a considerable amount of time clipping those coupons which will end up making them savings. Actually, let me correct myself – I think that a lot of people still do this today.
Of course, for those who spend a lot of time online, there is another kind of coupon for them – the electronic version. With this new widget from Fabulous Savings, you can keep track of the most updated coupons even more easily. This widget can be downloaded for free, giving you the latest coupons that you can use when shopping. One good thing about the coupons that you can find from this widget is that they are not limited to food items or grocery items only. You can actually find coupons for most anything under the sun!
Michael Yack, the founder of Fabulous Savings, shares that “this widget is a great resource for all consumers. We wanted to make information easy and valuable. That’s why we decided to offer our National Retailer coupons through our inaugural widget and let everyone save money.”
What stores are participating? There are a lot but here are some of the most popular ones: Target, Macy’s, Best Buy, Toys R Us, and Wal-Mart. I don’t know about you, but I am going to find this widget now.
Have you ever heard of Chatterous? I would not be surprised if you had not heard of them until now. It is actually a start up company, which has the main idea of offering venues to chat using whatever platform you prefer.
Let’s say you have a blog or a web site. The idea is that by embedding Chatterous onto your site, you will be able to chat with other users. Venture Beat gives more details on how Chatterous works:
The chat widget does exactly what you’d expect — it’s a way to embed a Chatterous chat on your website or blog. Of course, there are many, many other chat widgets out there, but Chatterous brings its own spin on the concept. Rather than simply integrating all your communication tools, Chatterous lets you choose one method — such as email, instant messaging, or SMS text messaging — then you can participate in a chat with people using other methods. So you’ve got multiple channels leading into one conversation. The chat widget is just another aspect of that strategy, adding another way users can watch and participate in the conversation. If you add the chat widget to, say, your blog, visitors can read and participate in the conversation on-site — but people don’t have to visit your site; in fact most of the chat participants can be still be emailing, IMing, etc.
I actually like that idea – being able to participate in a chat using various platforms, such as e-mail. While it is not that hard to gain access to chat these days, there are still some circumstances that might prove to be challenging (like when you’re at work and all you can access is e-mail).
