Widgetbox Blidgets – A Review

Widget service provider Widgetbox (site, review) has just launched Blidgets – a tool that lets publishers convert RSS feeds into Flash widgets.

Widgetbox joins SpringWidgets and MuseStorm as providers of Flash RSS widgets, along with start pages like YourMinis and PageFlakes.

Converting your RSS feed into a widget with Widgetbox has a couple of advantages.  For example, the Blidget tool makes it easy to add an image to your widget, which can be helpful for branding or presentation purposes.  Publishing a widget through Widgetbox also signs you up for Widgetbox’s free stats package which tracks page views by date and page views by domain.  Finally, there’s a distribution aspect as well.  Publishing with Widgetbox automatically drops you into Widgetbox’s widget gallery, which in my opinion, is the most polished and well presented widget directory out there.

I had no problems finding the Blidget tool, which is located prominently on the Widgetbox home page.  One very minor point that I appreciated – although I wasn’t logged in when I launched the tool, it didn’t direct me immediately to the login page.  It let me build my widget, and THEN allowed me to login.  Little things like this can make a big difference in adoption.

The configuration tool is user friendly and intuitive.  One neat, albeit minor, aspect that I hadn’t seen before was the way in which widget dimensions are chosen.  Instead of asking users to choose dimensions in pixels or percentages, Widgetbox gives two visual displays – one wide, and once narrow.  The narrow one is clearly for a sidebar, and the wide one is for a post or a social network.  It seems to me that widget newbies would much prefer this method, than being forced to choose a pixel width and height.  (note: The downside of this simplicity is that I was unable to reduce the wide widget to fit in the body of this post, even by adjusting the widths in the embed and object codes)

The other notable piece of the configuration tool is the Blidget’s use of images.  The Blidget tool sucks all of the images from your blog URL, and lets you select which (if any) of the images that you would like to display at the top of your widget.  It would have been nice to select an alignment for the image, but I understand the trade off between simplicity and functionality.

There were two things that I struggled with.  First, I tried to set up two different versions of the same widget for two different destinations – one for a sidebar, and one for a post.  Because Widgetbox is a widget management system, making a change to my widget republished the widget in all of its environments.  I guess the way around this would be to build two different widgets, e.g. LOTR- sidebar and LOTR – wide.

The second thing – and this is a minor point – is that the image that you select to accompany your widget has a default click through of the main URL of the RSS feed’s source.  This makes sense in general, but not when you want your image to be an RSS subscribe icon (see the widget in the right sidebar).  Clicking the RSS icon in this widget does not subscribe you to the blog – it takes you to the blog’s home page.  At a minimum, an override field should be provided so that the publisher controls where the image points to.

One final thing that sort of surprised me is the lack of a “grab this widget” icon at the bottom of the widget (although Widgetbox does provide "Get My Widget" buttons that bloggers can put on their blog).  As MuseStorm showed us, this doesn’t have to trigger in widget code – it could point back to the Widgetbox’s configuration tool.  I find this absence a bit problematic, as widget to widget distribution is a big deal.  I don’t know if this is an oversight on Widgetbox’s part, or if it’s a calculated move to prioritize Widgetbox Gallery distribution over widget to widget distribution.

Overall, this is a neat little tool.  I like the design options, I like the creative use of images, and I like the associated stats and automatic placement in the Widgetbox Gallery. 

So should publishers turn to MuseStorm or Widgetbox to convert their RSS feeds?  It’s too early to tell.  In their current iterations, there are pluses and minuses to both.  I like Widgetbox’s free analytics and image powered branding potential.  I like MuseStorm’s ‘grab this widget” functionality and partner driven distribution model.  At the end of the day, given that both offer nice interfaces and stats packages, distribution is going to tip the balance.  As a publisher, I’m going to give first dibs on my widget business to the platform that can put my widget in front of the most consumers.

For more on Widgetbox, see Mashable.

Comments

[Dean Moses]

Thanks for doing such a careful look at this Widgetbox feature!

Some color commentary on the points you made:

#1: When users subscribe to a blidget they can choose narrow and wide. No need for you to publish both versions. We'll make that clearer.

#2: Changing the URL the image links to: good idea, we'll put it in.

#3: Lack of "Grab this Widget": we do add a Get Widget button to the widget, but not when you choose 'Advanced Placement' as I believe you did. It was an oversight that we will fix.

Thanks again!
Dean Moses
CTO
Widgetbox

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Thanks for chiming in Dean - much appreciated.

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Thanks so much for the mention of yourminis. I wanted to add that yourminis gives you a lot of added flexibility in the design of your widget.

You can go to yourminis.com, add an rss feed, change the size of the widget, background (color, background image, transparency, minimal view, borders - round or square and more), text size, text color, and view (you can view single or multiple lines, even a summary view with an inline player).

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Although, I still don't understand why they won't provide my favourites, instead of the option 'all' or only one at a time. I don't want the microsoft RSS feeds that came by default, and now seem to have to live with them (hmmm... let me see again if I can remove them...)
You should be able to categorise – bookmark – specific feeds... hmmm... oh yes, that's called del.icio.us! Lol.

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