Thursday, October 9, 2008

AccuWeather.com WeatherAlarm 1.0.3

View the current weather forecast right on your desktop View the current weather forecast right on your desktop (read more) Read More

Venus Crystal Chair, Probably Manufactured on Krypton [Furniture]

Venus Crystal Chair, Probably Manufactured on Krypton [Furniture]
Tokujin Yoshioka likes chairs as much as the next chair designer, but he's not accustomed to using standard building materials. His latest project, the Venus Chair, is not built but grown. He shapes...

SpringWidgets Blog is Here!!!!!

SpringWidgets Blog is Here!!!!!
We're using the tools available to speed up our communication process. We'll be using this as our What's Up?, New and Cool, Future "stuff" blog so you don't have to crawl through the Forums if you don't want to (of course, feel free, if you like . . . either's cool).

The "wizards" (as I like to call them), aka our development team will add info here as well . . . so keep checking back.

The Toy Report 1.0

The Toy Report 1.0
Follow the Toy Report kids gift recommendations directly from your Mac desktop with this RSS widget.
About The Toy Report
Receive the latest kids toy news, gift ideas and toy reviews from the Toy Reporter directly on your desktop with this handy RSS Widget.

PSP Getting Dual Shock 3 Support Through 'PSP Plus' [PSP]

We've seen the patents and the rumors that the Sony PlayStation Portable would begin accepting the Dual Shock 3 controller. Heck, we've even seen those too impatient to wait who've modded the... Read More

TCP Connections 1.6

This Yahoo widget allows you view the number of your active and established TCP connections. This Yahoo widget allows you view the number of your active and established TCP connections. (read more) Read More

Giz Explains: Illustrated Guide to Smartphone OSes [Giz Explains]

Giz Explains: Illustrated Guide to Smartphone OSes [Giz Explains]
digg_skin = 'compact'; digg_bgcolor = '#f1f8fa'; digg_url = 'http://digg.com/software/Giz_Explains_Illustrated_Guide_to_Smartphone_OSes'; You're more likely than ever to buy a smartphone, not just...

Tri-Trick 1.5

Tri-Trick 1.5
A brand new puzzle game with 3 levels of difficulty, based on a very simple rule yet quite challenging.
About Tri-Trick
A brand new puzzle game with 3 levels of difficulty. Though level 1 is funny enough for most people, there’re always some people asking for more challenge.

At level 1, rearranging 9 digits back into sequential order is quite challenging enough. But even you can do that, the game is not over yet.

If you’re over the average and want some really mind-twisted games, you can play Tri-Trick with less digits (8 or 7). The less digits you play with, the more funny game you have.

Solving this puzzle requires a lot of brain work. Enjoy it!

Adding an Item to Your Queue

Adding an Item to Your Queue
From anywhere within Media Manager you can add another item to your queue. Click on the "Add Item" link in the left hand menu, or the "Add Item to your Queue" found on the main Media Manager screen. From...

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Promote Your Widgets!

We've been upgrading our site over the past few weeks, adding robust search and sorting, better widget description pages and building in some new tools that can be used promote your widgets.

Almost every upgrade we added is focused on making your widgets easier to find and the promotional tools are free to use with any widget in our gallery, so I thought I'd invite you all in to try them out.

No matter if you have uploaded a great new custom widget or created a quick express widget, all the new tools that we have just added in will work to help you promote your SpringWidget!

So, what's new?

1. Tagging In case you don't know what they are, "Tags" are just words that describe your widget that are used when someone searches our gallery. "Tagging" allows you to make it easier for users to find your widget.

You should tag your widget with words that describe the content or nature of your widget. For example, the springwidgets blog is all about news on the SpringWidgets platform, so I'd tag it with "springwidgets", "widgets" and "widget news" but I'd leave out more obvious words like "blog" and "news" because they really don't help users find content that is specific to my blog.

2. Star-Ratings Another tool to help you promote your widgets is our new ratings system. You can rate any widget in our gallery and users can sort by the best rated widgets. The more that you rate, the better the system gets! Help us out and rate a widget or two in the gallery today.

Here is an important tip - we let you rate your own widget so you can start the ratings yourself... Go ahead, give it a try.

3. Favorite Widgets Every time a user "favorites" your widget, it's added to a list of favorite widgets on that users profile! The better your widget looks and works, the more likely you'll have fans.

Want to favorite a widget? Just click the "favorite widgets" button on any widget in our gallery. Much easier and faster than saying "What was that widget called again?" and banging your head on the desk. :-)

4. Social Bookmarking Links Automatically add (or help vote up) any widget in our gallery to the various social bookmarking sites like Digg and Reddit. These sites are great ways to promote your widget and find new users. Just click the icon and follow the directions to get started. The great news is that once you submit your widget with these links, users can vote your widget up with a click or two!

5. Widget Search The best way to be found is to make sure that you are accurate when describing your widget. Any user can search our gallery for your widget and find results based on your developer id, widget title and description and tags.

The more accurate and descriptive you are, the more likely that a search will include your widget in front of interested users.

6. Tag Clouds and "Sorting by" Navigation Users can now search by Ratings, Tag Clouds, Name Sorting, and Most Recent Widgets.

Since users will be looking through the gallery with these tools, the more descriptive you are when entering your widget into the gallery, the better!

7. User Comments The more talked about your widget is, the more users are likely to trust adding you to their page or desktop. Get the conversation started by adding your own comments to the widgets you like.

Find a widget you like? let the creator know that you like it. Just feel like saying "thanks for letting me use your widget?" That's ok too. We hope that the addition of comments will be a popular and helpful feature for everyone.

Now get out there and start promoting yourself!

We are continuing to make improvements every day and we'd love to have your input on what to build next, so pop on over to the forums and tell us what you think!

Thanks,

Don Read More

Over 20 Billion Buttons Served in April

Over 20 Billion Buttons Served in April
It’s already been 18 months since we launched, an eternity in Internet time, and AddThis is continuing to grow very fast. Here is a graph we wanted to share with you. It gives a good idea of how fast our button is spreading. The graph shows how many times the button has been served [...]

button served It’s already been 18 months since we launched, an eternity in Internet time, and AddThis is continuing to grow very fast. Here is a graph we wanted to share with you. It gives a good idea of how fast our button is spreading. The graph shows how many times the button has been served each month since we started in October 2006 - over 20 Billion times in April alone (that’s 7,500 per second).

We have recently done a lot of under-the-hood work, to keep up with this fast growth. Stay tuned, we are also working on a lot of cool new features, including more analytics, more customization.


Extra DVD Copy Ripper 5.85

These applications will help you backup and rip your DVDs, even if you are a computer novice. These applications will help you backup and rip your DVDs, even if you are a computer novice. (read more) Read More

Over 20 Billion Buttons Served in April

It’s already been 18 months since we launched, an eternity in Internet time, and AddThis is continuing to grow very fast. Here is a graph we wanted to share with you. It gives a good idea of how fast our button is spreading. The graph shows how many times the button has been served [...]

button served It’s already been 18 months since we launched, an eternity in Internet time, and AddThis is continuing to grow very fast. Here is a graph we wanted to share with you. It gives a good idea of how fast our button is spreading. The graph shows how many times the button has been served each month since we started in October 2006 - over 20 Billion times in April alone (that’s 7,500 per second).

We have recently done a lot of under-the-hood work, to keep up with this fast growth. Stay tuned, we are also working on a lot of cool new features, including more analytics, more customization.

Read More

Check out our Christmas Tree widget!!

Check out our Christmas Tree widget!!
We thought everyone could use a Christmas Tree widget that counts down the days (like you need more reminding of how fast it is approaching)!

Go to the Christmas Tree page on the site http://springwidgets.com/widgets/view/46 to get your own tree for your page or to pop to your desktop. It can be configured to your liking. We're working on a Menorah and Kwanzaa also . . . keep checking back!


July Top Services: Facebook, Google, and MySpace

July Top Services: Facebook, Google, and MySpace
We looked at our large amount of bookmarking/sharing data for the month of July. Here are the results. The top services are Facebook, Google Bookmarks, and MySpace … followed by Live, Delicious, and Digg. Google Bookmarks has enjoyed first position for a long time, but now Facebook is suddenly taking over. We will be sure to [...]

We looked at our large amount of bookmarking/sharing data for the month of July. Here are the results. The top services are Facebook, Google Bookmarks, and MySpace … followed by Live, Delicious, and Digg.

Google Bookmarks has enjoyed first position for a long time, but now Facebook is suddenly taking over. We will be sure to check this data again next month, to see if this trend is continuing … this space is changing fast.