Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have taken the world by storm. Even people who do not usually spend a lot of time online find themselves doing so because of these platforms. Businesses have also realized the potential of these platforms, and software developers are capitalizing on this. As such, we get to see all these new platforms advertising themselves as the “Facebook of business” or the “Twitter of business.”
WorkLight is a company which develops various social networking software, much like other software companies out there. However, unlike the “Facebook of business” companies, WorkLight takes on a slightly difference approach. Instead of creating whole new platforms and selling them as the “[place popular social networking platform here] of business,” WorkLight is bringing their widgets to the existing popular platforms.
WorkLight specializes in business applications which can be used for online banking, travel management, and other basic collaboration tasks. The good thing is that the applications can be published in various platforms such as Facebook, iGoogle, iPhone (yep!), and blogs. To date, WorkLight is working in collaboration with 17 consumer channels. This means that anyone who uses a widget that WorkLight has created can publish it easily to those channels.
The main advantage of this idea is that businesses need not spend a lot of money on developing widgets for different platforms. They only have to invest on a single application and then simply publish to the relevant platforms wherein the business may already have an established presence.
For more information on WorkLight, visit their web site here.
This post is for web developers and other individuals who are interested in making use of their spare time and having fun while at it. Samsung has fast made a name for itself in the mobile phone arena, and has consistently provided users with great options. One of the things that mobile phone users look forward to is the release of new widgets, which make the phone experience all the more interesting and useful.
This year, Samsung is encouraging the creation of new widgets with Innovation Quest. Also known as SIQ or Samsung IQ, the event this year is focusing largely on the GT-i8910 home screen. The competition is being co-sponsored by The Symbian Foundation.
Those who will be joining the competition are in for an exciting event for sure. More than simply being participants and coming up with something new, contestants are going to be equipped with a lot of tools and resources, which the sponsors are providing. For example, a series of technical papers on widgets for mobile purposes is to be made available.
If you are worried that you are not an expert and you merely like to dabble with software development, you should rest easy. The event is meant for the expert as well as the novice.
At the end of the competition, the SIQ winner will take home around $25,000 and the potential income from the sales of the winning widget. Register at Samsung Mobile Innovator to join now. Deadline is 14 August, so it’s not too late!
Yahoo used to be THE thing when it came to the Internet. I remember more than a decade ago, when the Internet was only starting to become big, it was Yahoo that was on everyone’s lips. Today, however, Yahoo does not have that distinction anymore. The Internet, and technology in general, has evolved so rapidly and so many players are on the field now.
Yahoo is not giving up on its existence yet, though. In fact, even if it has a lot of competition, Yahoo is still a major factor to consider; and it continues to evolve and offer new things to users. One of the recent revelations on the Yahoo Blog is the fact that they are offering a host of new widgets and apps which will allow users to do a lot of things without having to leave the Inbox.
This has gotten a lot of attention and it seems to me – even if I have not personally tested all the widgets and apps – that this piece of news is being received favorably. Reuters actually featured this earlier this month. Some of the most notable widgets and apps mentioned were:
There’s a PayPal application that can integrate into a user’s Yahoo mail, as well as apps from personal finance service Mint.com and blogging tool WordPress which can be weaved into a person’s MyYahoo start page. Nearly 20 new widgets are now available for use in various Yahoo products, including a handful of apps for Internet enabled-TVs.
I am all for this, though I have one question: how is the speed of the interface?
Google fan boys probably know about this by now, but for those of us who may not have heard of it yet, Google has brought out a new first party widget that can be used with the Google Desktop. The widget basically allows you to see your Google Reader feeds without having to open up your browser.
Josh Lowensohn from CNET tells us all about it:
It puts Google Reader’s source list in your sidebar where you can peruse feeds you’re subscribed to and read individual stories in a small pop-up window that slides out across your screen.
The widget works both in Google Desktop’s dock and “popped out” on its own. Between the two, I prefer it off the dock since you can see more of the feeds and stories at once without having to change the height and width of your sidebar; something that can affect the look and feel of other widgets.
The widget is not without its faults, though:
One major drawback is that it can’t yet properly display HTML-formatted feeds, meaning some of your feeds will be left unreadable with images and page formatting stripped out. However, just like in Google Reader proper, you can simply click on the headline to hop to it on its original site.
I also found performance on this widget to be a tad sluggish. It doesn’t provide the instant feedback you get in the browser. For instance, clicking on my source list of feeds and seeing them appear took about two or three seconds. The same goes for any time you drill down to see any feed’s list of stories.
Still, I have to agree with Lowensohn that despite these flaws, having a widget from which you can easily access your RSS feeds is pretty convenient. I am off to download it now myself.
More and more, technology is making things convenient and easy for us. One of the things that I like about new technology is the goal of integration. With each new wave of new technological developments, users get to gain access to various platforms without the need to change from one gadget to another, or one system to another. Here is a perfect example – a widget providing access to no less than Twitter and Facebook to FiOS users.
FiOS is Verizon’s service which allows users to have Internet, phone, and TV service in one go. There are different bundles available to suit anyone’s needs and preferences.
So is it really t hat cool to have this widget? Why should anyone be excited? First, I am assuming that you are into Twitter and Facebook as much as the next person. These days, I do not think I know anyone who is not very much involved in these two social networking sites. Different people may have different reasons for being hooked on Twitter and Facebook but the fact remains that there are so many users worldwide.
Now just imagine watching a TV show on FiOS. You will definitely be enjoying yourself if it’s your favorite show, but with the new widget, you can even find out what other people think about the same show! I can already imagine sports fans dishing out their opinions on the current game, play by play. Now you can see the huge potential of this widget!
One of the main goals of widgets is to make various platforms accessible to users. Widgets bring together these platforms, making it much easier to share information with other people. And this is exactly what PlayXpert had in mind when they came up with the idea of the PlayXpert Twitter Widget.
CNET reports:
Combining two of the most addictive things about the online universe—Twitter and World of Warcraft—seems like a good way to bring productivity in the Western world to a screeching halt.
If that happens, you can blame PlayXpert, a maker of various in-game widgets for PC gamers. The company today announced the PlayXpert Twitter Widget, adding Twitter functionality to the existing PlayXpert software, which works with WoW and other online PC games.
In-game widget engines such as PlayXpert (which bills itself as an “in-game operating system”) run alongside PC games, offering voice chat, Web browsing, and other tools for players, without the need to quit or ATL+TAB out of the game to launch another app (popular examples include Xfire and Steam).
“A screeching halt” is but an understatement, I think. Having personal experience with both Twitter and World of Warcraft, I am pretty sure that a large number of people will get hooked even more. And you know what the best thing about this new widget is? You can download it for free – along with other widgets – at PlayXpert’s web site.
I can now see critics (of spending too much time playing games) shaking their heads right now.
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 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.
When the Samsung Omnia came out, it was touted as one of the iPod killers. At that time, I was pretty skeptical. After all, it is very hard to overcome the hype that Apple products always come with. Months down the road, it seems that the Omnia is living up to the expectations of its fans.
For those of you who have a Samsung Omnia, one of the things that you might have noticed missing is the capability for lotsa widgets. I can imagine how frustrating this could be. I may not have a Samsung Omnia but I do know how cool widgets for mobile phones are and as cool as an Omnia can be, it just doesn’t live up to its potential if it does not have widgets.
So here’s the good news – Samsung has recently released a new ROM, which includes new widgets. The ROM was only released on the 11th of March and is still in the beta version. From what I hear, some of the widgets that are already active include a stocks widget, a news widget, a weather widget, and a Google and Yahoo search widget. There is also a section for “more widgets,” but unfortunately, it is not functional as of yet. And that is why perhaps some people are waiting for the more stable version of the ROM to come out before downloading it. If I had the Omnia, though, I would download the beta version and find out for myself.
Who doesn’t hate being stuck in the middle of traffic? I know I do. Just last Friday, I found myself wasting about an hour sitting in the car, waiting for Friday night traffic to let up so I could get to my destination. Friday nights is really one of the worst times to go out. Everyone and their moms seems to need to be somewhere in a real hurry and the city streets are just so full of people trying to be ahead of one another.
While widgets will not probably physically get rid of all the cars on the road, having a widget to at least know the conditions on the road will be quite helpful. At least, if you know just how bad the traffic is, you can find an alternative route or stay where you are till the conditions get better.
And that’s what the TomTom HD Traffic Widget can do for you. This Traffic Widget is compatible with some of the most popular sites that we use on a constant basis – Facebook, iGoogle, and Bebo. It offers real time information on traffic. It also offers customization – you can indicate a particular place and monitor the traffic in and around that area. Using this customization feature, the TomTom widget can also calculate the additional time that it will take you to travel from one point to another, based on the current traffic situation. The widget constantly refreshes itself, giving you only the most up to date information.
And the best thing about it? It can be downloaded for free!
