Widgetbox
When navigating a website, it's all about the user experience. Finding and looking for ways to engage the user to browse throughout your website is all dependent on how well you can create content that is worth reading and being viewed. While building this blog, one of the primary concerns i had was having a twitter feed for users to view my tweets, or even view the people I follow on twitter.
So I tried looking up different ways to embed a twitter feed... All efforts went in vain. and even when I tried to get it to work, it just wouldn't show up in the right area. HUMPH!!! It's was frustrating...
After all my efforts, I chose to use widgetbox.com, a site that allows you to create widgets, mobile apps, and design ads for a variety of platforms. The process was a breeze. Before even signing up, widgetbox.com let me create my widget and customize it and make all the necessary changes to have my widget be color coordinated with my site.
Just to give you an idea of what the process looked like and how easy it was take a look at the screenshots below...
Needless to say, I finished designing my widget in a matter of minutes, and didn't even have to do any endless searches for any problems I was facing.
The goal at the end of the day was to create, customize and implement.
The tough part needless to say was putting it into this blog, which required a little work and the aligning of it, I still don't know yet... (Another piece on aligning widgets and plugins will be posted later.)
I was quite pleased with the process, and found it to be rewarding to see my work being publishable quality. Even going back to make micro changes was a breeze, it required me just to go to the dashboard select the widget I created and presto!
[pic of dashboard and micro-editing process:]
After creating the widget, the next step was embeding it in, and me and html are like long lost foes.... we talk, play, and poke each other but we just can't get along. With a pinch of salt, I had to take a step into the html of my blog page just so I could put it in.... Tough part was understanding the difference between using javascript and flash. I tried using javascript first and yeah, it didn't turn out too well, the widget endedup at the top of the page, totally unprofessional for my standards and not even close to where I wanted it to be. So I tried flash next, and voila! it came close to the are that I wished for it to be in but still not all beautiful and pretty as how I would like it to be. But nonetheless you take what little you can and move on.
Widgetbox's service IMO is great, even though I was using a 14-day trial, I was able to take advantage of the full functionality of the website, no subscribe or upgrade messages throughout the process. An easy in-n-out.
To top it off, widgetbox offers value-added services in addition to the widget creation, pulling statistics of the number of impressions and views your widget has received. Quite a useful tool if you're trying to see whether or not you're poking people's interests.
Take a look:
Needless to say widgetbox has standardized a complex process into a few simple and easy steps. Isn't that what we all want?
Stay tuned for learning to align a widget....