Riding the Storm
Max @ Nielsen gets it
A few days ago Max Kalehoff , VP of Metrics for Nielsen BuzzMetrics wrote about the Top-Ten Principles of Consumer-Generated Advertising Campaigns.
The guys at Nielsen know a lot about user behavior and trends and thus it is not surprising that principle 5 is… Empower Syndication.
This summer, MuseStorm is going to change the world of widget syndication completely with Project Sierra. If you want to empower syndication for your content, stay tuned!
Facebook split personality
Trying to add the Facebook “developer” application to an account gives the following message:
Makes you wonder who to believe… 
So much going on
We've been quiet lately and haven't posted much. If you read our blog and follow MuseStorm a bit you know that means only one thing: something's cooking...The first thing out of the kitchen is Washington Post Blogroll widgets. If you're not familiar with the Blogroll program ... suffice it to say that we're very proud to be working with the Post, and this is just the beginning!
This is a good opportunity to give you a sneak preview of our upcoming release (code named) Project Sierra. I still can't say much about Sierra, but we are really excited - it's going to be the biggest thing that happened to widget syndication ever!
RateItAll launches MuseStorm-powered widgets
RateItAll, a consumer rating site has launched widgets for their user created rating lists. The widgets, powered by MuseStorm, allow any user to grab one of RateItAll's 25,000+ lists and embed it in their web page, blog or social network (e.g. MySpace).We are very glad to be working with RateItAll, and especially with Lawrence Coburn their founder and a true Widget expert. Lawrence writes an important widget blog, SexyWidget, covering widgets from all over.
The launch got off to a rocky start with one of our servers crashing following the high interest generated by the launch (maybe it had something to do with Mashable's coverage
). Within a few hours we did the required optimizations and everything is operating smoothly since.As a user, I really dig RateItAll, because you can find a list on just about anything! check out this wacky list about "things to do while intoxicated"... and you can easily widgetize the list by clicking the link on top! What crazy list can you widgetize?
The press release is here.
Snipperoo Blog MuseStorm Widget
Ivan, our good friend from Snipperoo, is using the MuseStorm Widget Syndication Platform to allow his blog readers to pull his blog's content into their websites and blogs. If you care about widgets, you should definitely check out Ivan's blog and his company, Snipperoo.Widget Misconceptions
Jeremy Zawodny wrote a post titled “JavaScript Badges and Widgets Considered Harmful“.
The post lists six issues that Jeremy finds ‘harmful’ about widgets.
I totally disagree with Jeremy’s point of view and here’s why, point by point:
1. Jeremy calls widgets “a hack”. I don’t see why embedding a widget is a hack more than embedding an image using the tag.
2. Jeremy complains that search engines can’t mine widget data on a page. I think it’s not relevant. Widgets are embedded to make the page/blog/site more useful for users, not machines. I understand the value of indexing and there are definitely ways to make widgets more crawl-able, but heck, humans first.
3. Site performance issues. Like anything else, if you embed a lousy widget, you might suffer a performance hit. At MuseStorm we thoroughly test our widgets to ensure good performance.
4. Hard to skin? did Jeremy take a look at the MuseStorm Widget Configurator?
5. Jeremy claims that widgets are not secure. This is a valid point if you’re dealing with JavaScript based widgets from unknown sources. But Flash widgets are much more secure, and live within their own sandbox, so no worries there.
6. “Don’t work everywhere”? hardly. Most decent widgets work everywhere, especially the Flash ones.
What do you think?
Widgets are viral. Case in point: RateItAll
A few days ago, Lawrence from RateItAll posted a MuseStorm widget that listed the 2007 Super Bowl commercials reviews from RateItAll.People really liked the widget and content, it seems, as it has popped up all over the Web (for example, here and here).
So what made this widget work so well?
- Great, compelling content
- Attractive widget
- Ability to "copy" widget easily to another website
- Ability to personalize the widget to fit the hosting website
RSS Marketing Search Engine
If you’re in the RSS business check out the work done by Marjolein of CleverClogs on the Power 150 - an RSS-Enabled Marketing Search Engine.
Marjolein, btw, uses the MuseStorm service as you can see at the top her CleverClogs blog. As an expert on RSS she also provided us with amazing feedback and we’re glad she is doing so well!
One-click widget integrations
We’ve just updated the Widget Syndication Service to allow users who configure widgets to add them with one click to PageFlakes, Netvibes and Snipperoo.
It’s now easier than ever for publishers to get their content as a widget on their users’ favorite services!
Here’s how it works: after configuring the widget, the user is presented with a badge for one of the services and only has to click it to have it popup in his/hers favorite service.
![](http://www.musestorm.com/images/oneclick.jpg"})
And here’s what it looks like in each of the services:
Pageflakes
Netvibes
Snipperoo
More integrations are on the way, so don’t despair if your favorite service is not supported yet…
Spending the morning with Luc Besson at DLD07
DLD has turned out to be a superb event!
Well organized, great speakers, networking and… the WiFi is working flawlessly.
First up this morning is Luc Besson - should be very interesting. Yesterday we heard Nicholas Negroponte (from the $100 laptop project), Caterina Fake (Flickr) and Niklas (Skype) among others and the sessions were fantastic.
Check out pictures from DLD on Flickr.