Widgetbox has launched a “roll your own” Facebook App builder.
I took it for a spin, and it’s cool.
Basically, it’s an easy way for non-developers to push their Widgetbox hosted widgets to Facebook as real Facebook Apps, with full access to the viral distribution enabled by Facebook’s social networks.
So far, this should be sounding pretty similar to what Clearspring recently announced, as well as the tool offered by Ning.
But here’s where Widgetbox is just a little bit easier. Because Widgetbox had already built this cool Blidget tool which converts RSS feeds to Widgetbox hosted, Flash Widgets, they provide that much more outreach to non-developers.
So, using Widgetbox’s Blidget functionality, plus Widgetbox’s roll your own Facebook tool, I can push any RSS feed live into the Facebook distribution machine. For developers, this won’t be a big deal. For people like me, it’s a big deal.
Ning is also pretty friendly to non developers, but the last time I checked, you could only push photos, video, or music out to Facebook. Not RSS feeds.
I had no problem pushing a Clearspring widget onto Facebook as an app, but I did have a problem loading up a widget with multiple parameters into Clearspring. And to date, they don’t have an RSS to Flash conversion tool open to the public.
So we’re talking about three cool offerings from three formidable companies – at this point, I’d have to say that Widgetbox’s offering provides me with the most flexibility with the kinds of content that I can convert to a Facebook App.
Of course, an RSS powered Facebook App is going to do little more than act as a display widget. But that’s OK. It’s something we didn’t have before.
Here an app that I built of top rated Flight of the Conchords videos using RateItAll’s RSS feed on the subject.
I had two little issues with the process. The first is that your profile page doesn’t display the entire app – it forces you to click through to the canvas page to see it. Widgetbox said that this was due to a desire to make people hit the canvas page, so that the apps would do better in the app directory in terms of engagement. Based on feedback, it sounds like they’re going to rethink this.
The second issue may very well have been a user issue, but I had a bit of a problem getting to the app preferences page that let me select where exactly the app would show up in my Facebook experience. I have since removed and re-added the app without any problems.
The widget platform space is innovating very quickly. Next, I hope to play around with Musestorm’s new stuff.
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