Would be great to be able to aggregate related content on Youtube into a single space, PUN intended.
YouTube have opened it’s API and it won’t be long before you see bloggers, webmasters, using “on the fly” widgets to aggregate tagged based content… . This is not a widget (below) , but imagine if you could aggregate all content on youtube related to keywords “laugh without smiling” (there is allot on you tube of this exercise -no suprise!) into one component and stick that on your blog/site. Pretty powerful I would say….
Radiohead is banned in our office as it tends to bring the mood down, but sometimes we like to chortle about how young Thom Yorke was a child prodigy kept locked in a cupboard (which is kinda what his voice sounds like when he sings) and also a thumb. Young Thumb Yorke.
‘Radiohead is the poster child for web distribution and an autonomous strategy for controlling one’s own destiny (while still making money) as an artist in this day and age. So when we heard about th latest Radiohead “In Rainbows” widget, powered by Clearspring, we decided to check it out.
The widget contains an entire menu of video and music content, along with tour dates, news articles, and a link to purchase the album. We’ve seen a few companies launch similar music widgets for artists, with some variants such as maps for tour dates, etc.
The Radiohead widget currently lacks interactivity for the end user, otherwise it would be a bit more like Splashcast’s widget offering, which has also been taking advantage of the open platforms across networks like Facebook and MySpace.
But given Clearspring’s other efforts to move forward in the widget space, having launched an ad network and other tools for web publishers to extend widgetizing content offerings, what we’re seeing is a standardization of widget features that are widely being adopted by musicians, combining viral sharing tools, self-promotion and easy access to content that can be monetized.’
A little more interactivity please Thom & Co and the ability to upload our fellow Fat dieters, Bon Bon’s really rather good video to Numb.
According to the Widget Metrix data from November 2007 (the month in which I narrowly avoided killing a hedgehog traversing a highway in deepest darkest Dorsetshire), Bunny Hero Labs clocked up a bunny boiling 16,123,000 unique views for it’s cyber pet widgets.
Techcrunch looks in depth at the statistics, but fails to mention Bunny Hero Labs, which looks kinda odd sandwiched between Google and a whole heap of News Corp. Well on my quest to uncover the Widget of The Covenant I shall endeavour to mention Bunny Labs as much as I possibly can… bunny labs, bunny labs… and have created a pink hedgehog in their honour. I salute you Bunny Labs.
Yup, I’m back in widget mode and strangely despite knowing I’m marketing a film I’m actually looking forward to and despite thinking I should know better than to be hoodwinked by those clever Paramount marketeers, I’m going to embed it anyway.
If you follow the Fat Man up-chuck you know I’ve developed a fascination with all things ‘widget‘. Wrapped up in all of this small portable hype are open API’s. 90% of Twitter usage takes place outside of Twitter - which is kinda nuts, but wholly indicative of where the web is heading. We want what we want, where we want it, often within the social networks we inhabit or the desktops we decorate or the start-page we stare at.
If the blogosphere is, ‘a frontier town with no lawman (I mean, O’Reilly has a badge on, but no gun and no jail). You can do just about anything you want, but the politically savvy folks tend to arm themselves to the teeth and gang together to protect their property. Everyone else is in the middle of chaos, either fighting blindly for attention or politely asking (by linking early and linking often) if they can join the big Gang.’ (Michael Arrington) . Then the widgetosphere is a deranged pastor coming onto your land and suggesting you open up to your neighbours, give them some rum to take home with them so they tell all their friends what a good shot you are.
Then some fool comes along and claims Rock You, purveyors of every annoying Facebook app you’ve ever been force fed, is worth $400m! Based on user base and absolutely no business model at all.
Whilst my web brethren decamped to Austin for SXSW, I went to the Science Museum with my daughter to attend a lecture on Bubbles (I’m not making this up). I learned a lot about bubbles and molecules, stuff I’d long forgotten. You need just the right mix of washing up liquid and water to create giant bubbles and plenty of huffing and puffing to propel them into the air. Kids love them.
With the Bebo sale and now the crazy valuations for Rock You and it’s competitor Slide, it looks like the mix is about right to create an almighty bubble.
All it takes is one little prick to pop it.
Herewith my scratcher courtesy of Rock Star, enjoy it’s simple ability to enrage anyone with a brain cell and to forever make you curse the sound of a rusty penny being chucked into an old tin which is as much as the sound designers at Rocky You can manage by way of special effects.
I love the word douchebag, which I think roughly means ’shower bag’ in Franglais… it has no relevance to this item, I just like the word.
Share This the creators of one singular widget, which is green and looks like a tuning fork have raised a staggering $21m, based on no business model and the goodwill of the people installing the widget who will no doubt revolt at first sign of advertising.
I love my lil’ widgets, but these guys give widgets a bad name, like they’re ‘bidgets’ or something. Reading the write up on Techcrunch I was drawn to one particularly acerbic comment, which has prompted me to make ‘oddball comments’ a regular feature at the Fat Canteen, so gather round and chow down douchebags.
Nasty little douchebag… now good VC kindly bring me my shower bag.
I’m thinking widgets may be the future of the web. They make every social network page or blog, or start page a personal media network.
It seems Will Price of we’re-not-arms-dealers-even-though-we-sound-like-we-might-be, Hummer Winblad venture capitalists also thinks so, so much so he’s biting the hand that feeds him and leaving the boardrooms full of free pens for the backrooms full of bearded start-up geeks drinking Kool-Aid and joining Hummer Winblad backed Widgetbox.
His logic goes thus:
“The best markets and the best companies ride the tide of history. Widgets are such a market.
The Web’s tide is open, distributed, standard, user-defined, and, in many ways, the most powerful force of the modern era. Widgets are not a fad, or web 2.0-hype, but fundamentally they are the unit by which users are assembling and defining their web experience.”
I kinda agree and to show my agreement in a widgety way, I used Slide, King O’The Facebook Apps Crapola to turn Bon Bon’s Radiohead video into something that wouldn’t be out of place in my daughter’s bedroom alongside her picture of Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka.
A sleepless night spent sweeping imaginary spiders from beneath my 2 year olds bed on Friday led to an early night on Saturday where, as the wife snored, I was shocked to find myself transfixed by ITV’s The Kylie Show. Part PopPorn Lite, part sketchy sketch show, one song had me reaching for my You Tube the following morning.
So I thought I’d use this unreleased track as an exercise in how to capitalise on the new methods of musical promotion out there and look at a few of the areas where technology and sequins combine: Read the rest of this entry »
Last week was all about Google’s Open Social announcement, grouping together MySpace, LinkedIn and other social networking sites to create a common developer environment and put the virtual squeeze on Facesoft to join the party and create a true widegetocracy.
Ah, heaven, develop a killer widget, no need to develop on various disparate platforms, just a one size fits all wrapper enabling people to share the goodness of the widget with everyone, who… well… anyone who is on a social network and with the launch of a silver surfers network by Saga (them of the Club 55-80 holidays) that includes your Bad Uncle Bobby and his new wife Patty with the implants.
Now all we need is some real innovation in the widget sphere, like a widgetzine, filtered content from around the web.
‘Daft Punk, the French electronic duo known for making music that scares your cat and using robots for live shows, are being hip again. This time, they’ve decided to promote their new live album, Alive, with an embeddable widget, which allows visitors to listen to previews of new tracks, buy the single, read Daft Punk’s biography, read the newsletter, and see a photo gallery of the band.
The widget below is yet another proof that “standard” promotional tools are giving way to web based promotion and social networking. And, since the creation of such a widget costs next to nothing, we expect to see more and more bands take this route and move much of their marketing activities online.’ (via Mashable)
It’s Friday and normally Friday posts are lite hearted web porn lite, but I uncovered this story from the 2500 posts I’ve yet to read through in my RSS reader. At Fat Man Towers we’ve been binge eating and developing widget concepts as promotional tools so this is sweet electro funk to our ears. The widget sphere is open for innovation and savvy content creators and brands should be looking to provide ‘value’ widgets, micro applications that people can share, or to return to a familiar theme, appvertising made portable.
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