Install Feed Manager
There are two options when installing Feed Manager: Download and install the Feed Manager archive manually Install via the Plugin Manager plugin for Movable Type...
Thursday, October 2, 2008
SpringWidgets loves iGoogle
There is a lot of press today on Google Homepages... oops... I mean "iGoogle"
Since we at SpringWidgets are really big fans of Google and everything they do. I thought this would be a great time to officially say how much we love the iGoogle page by letting everyone know that we have recently added in support for automatic posting of all SpringWidgets into your personalized iGoogle page!
Just choose the widget you are interested in, configure it however you like it to look and function and then select the Google icon in the share it box.
The whole process takes only a few seconds and is one of the easiest ways to put one of our widgets on a page that we have available. Way to go Google!
With all the recent focus on widgets, it's not surprising that everyone is building a widget destination of some sort. We at SpringWidgets will continue to build support for each new destination as APIs become available and look forward to helping enable 2007 truly being the year of the widget.
Here is my iGoogle page. Complete with today's MLB games and a countdown to the next episode of NBC's Heroes!
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Since we at SpringWidgets are really big fans of Google and everything they do. I thought this would be a great time to officially say how much we love the iGoogle page by letting everyone know that we have recently added in support for automatic posting of all SpringWidgets into your personalized iGoogle page!
Just choose the widget you are interested in, configure it however you like it to look and function and then select the Google icon in the share it box. The whole process takes only a few seconds and is one of the easiest ways to put one of our widgets on a page that we have available. Way to go Google!
With all the recent focus on widgets, it's not surprising that everyone is building a widget destination of some sort. We at SpringWidgets will continue to build support for each new destination as APIs become available and look forward to helping enable 2007 truly being the year of the widget.
Here is my iGoogle page. Complete with today's MLB games and a countdown to the next episode of NBC's Heroes!
Read MoreSearch on eBay 1.5
Search on eBay 1.5
Quickly find items on ebay using the Search on eBay Opera widget Quickly find items on ebay using the Search on eBay Opera widget (read more)
Quickly find items on ebay using the Search on eBay Opera widget Quickly find items on ebay using the Search on eBay Opera widget (read more)
How to display your RSS subscriber count
How to display your RSS subscriber count
You've all seen the little FeedBurner subscriber counters on sites that display a site or more often a blogs number of RSS subscribers. Whilst this is a nice widget to display on your site there isn't much in the way of customizing to display something different.
Plaint text subscriber count
There is a way to display the number of readers you have for your feed by using FeedBurners API. This means you can display your subscriber count within some text, for example as part of a blog post. You could also have a separate message somewhere on you site saying X number of readers subscribe to this site.
You can use the PHP code below. You need to have PHP5 otherwise the SimpleXMLElement command will not work.
//get cool feedburner count
$whaturl="http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetFeedData?uri=YourFeedburnerFeedLinkHere";
//Initialize the Curl session
$ch = curl_init();
//Set curl to return the data instead of printing it to the browser.
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
//Set the URL
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $whaturl);
//Execute the fetch
$data = curl_exec($ch);
//Close the connection
curl_close($ch);
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($data);
$fb = $xml->feed->entry['circulation'];
//end get cool feedburner count
?>
The next line of PHP needs to be located where you want the subscriber count number to appear. This code needs to occur after the code above for it to work.
I borrowed this code from Mark over at 45n5 so thanks Mark.
This post is from the Newsniche website and should not be reproduced elsewhere. Why not subscribe to the RSS feed and get this information delivered straight to your News reader.
Feed Compare Feedburner subscriber graphs
A large number of blogs and other sites now use Feedburner as it has a number of great Pro freatures and Feedburner also allows you to transfer feed ownership between users. Whilst you can see your stats in Feedburner the graphs are not that great and you can compare them.
There is a site called Feed Compare that allows you to view the RSS subscriber data for up to 4 feeds on a single graph. This means you could compare your competitors RSS subscriber count with your own feed.
To allow you to get a better idea of subscriber numbers you can also view a graph showing data for the last month, quarter, half year, year or 2 years assuming the feed has been in existence for that long.
The reason this is such a great tool is that you can now find out exactly how a sites RSS feed has grown over time. All you need is the sites Feedburner URL which you can get by right clicking on the sites RSS feed icon and copying the URL than pasting it into Feed Compare.
This post is from the Newsniche website and should not be reproduced elsewhere. Why not subscribe to the RSS feed and get this information delivered straight to your News reader.
Read MoreNew Features - More Customization of the Button
New Features - More Customization of the Button
Well, it’s 2008. Hope you all got a chance to try the new features we added last month to your analytics interface. We already received some great feedback. We’ve been busy preparing to move to our new platform. This new platform will enable AddThis to scale more easily and provide additional powerful capabilities to the service. [...]
Well, it’s 2008. Hope you all got a chance to try the new features we added last month to your analytics interface. We already received some great feedback. We’ve been busy preparing to move to our new platform. This new platform will enable AddThis to scale more easily and provide additional powerful capabilities to the service. [...]
Well, it’s 2008. Hope you all got a chance to try the new features we added last month to your analytics interface. We already received some great feedback.
We’ve been busy preparing to move to our new platform. This new platform will enable AddThis to scale more easily and provide additional powerful capabilities to the service. We have now reached the milestone of 100 Million buttons served per day, so it was time to move again. The move will happen next week, the transition will be completely transparent.
We have also been busy coding new features for the button (widget). Many of you have asked us for more ways to customize the button, as well as for an email function. We listened…so here are the latest enhancements. Thank for your continuous feedback!
Button customization - You now have full control over the customization of the the button image, text, and style. We essentially moved the button image and link outside of the javascript, so you can now change the image, text, or style of the button as much as you want, and very easily.
Service options customization - You can now customize the list of service options that appear in the dropdown (e.g. Del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, etc). You can even remove the “More” choice completely, if you only want to provide access to the most popular services.
Dropdown positioning - We also added the ability to re-position the dropdown vertically or horizontally, if needed.
Email a Friend - We have added a new service option: Email. So when selecting your options for the dropdown, you can now include the keyword ‘email’. When the user clicks on ‘Email’, the dropdown will transform itself into a tiny form to send an email notification to a friend.
>> Here is the documentation for the new features <<
Happy Customizing!
Aquarium 0.1
Aquarium 0.1
Relax, watch the Aquarium and chill out with some ambience music.
Relax, watch the Aquarium and chill out with some ambience music.
 | About Aquarium Relax, watch the Aquarium and chill out with some ambience music. |
The Simpsons Quote Box 4.0
Displays famous quotes form “The Simpsons” T.V. show and movie. Randomly selects a quote from a database of almost 2000 quotes then displays it when Dashboard is shown.
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 | About The Simpsons Quote Box Displays famous quotes form “The Simpsons” T.V. show and movie. Randomly selects a quote from a database of almost 2000 quotes then displays it when Dashboard is shown. Features: - The most Simpsons quotes of any Dashboard widget, almost 2000 quotes. - Allows the currently displayed quote to be copied to the clipboard. - Quotes from all the major characters of the show. - Quotes from Seasons 1-19. - Quotes from “The Simpsons Movie.” - Quotes from “The Simpsons Game.” - Customizable face colors. Light Blue, Orange, Pink, and Yellow. - Checks for updates automatically. |
RSS Hugger
RSS Hugger
Collin LaHay has come up with an idea called RSSHugger, it's a site that allows webmasters to promote their RSS feeds by adding them to the site. You can add your own page but it will cost you 20US dollars (10 is you blog about RSSHugger).
RSS Hugger seems to be a cross between an RSS directory and a wiki. Collin wants the directory to grow to 50,000 blogs which he claims is 0.00045 percent of the blogosphere.
The idea behind the new site is to create buzz and generate new RSS subscribers for RSS feeds that are added to the site. When you buy a page you basically get your feed headlines displayed on your own page within RSSHugger. Whether or not enough buzz is created to generate any new subscribers to members feeds remains to be seen.
This post is from the Newsniche website and should not be reproduced elsewhere. Why not subscribe to the RSS feed and get this information delivered straight to your News reader.
Install Plugin Manager
Download the Plugin Manager installation script. Save the file locally as pm-install.cgi. Upload the pm-install.cgi file you just saved via FTP or some other file transfer application into Movable Type?s root/home directory. This is the same directory in which... Read More
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Aiseesoft DVD to iPod Converter 3.1.10
The value of an RSS subscriber at 30 dollars
Have you ever wondered how much each subscriber to your RSS feed is worth. Well according to Mark over at 45n5 that magic number is currently $30. Mark arrived at this figure by dividing the price blogs have recently sold for by the number of subscribers to the blog.
I have previously made predictions about RSS playing a more important role back in October 2006. It looks like RSS is now an important metric to measure the success of a site and it is also starting to play a larger role in deciding the monetary value of a blog.
RSS subscribers and their value
Although Mark's use of RSS as a measurement of value was just a bit of fun it does show that RSS is a valued metric. A year ago most webmasters and readers would not have placed much if any value in the number of subscribers you have.
As RSS becomes a more valued metric the value of the RSS feed itself will grow. There are going to be more advertisers willing to buy advertising in an RSS feed and the value of RSS will grow. This is because many RSS subscribers do not click through to the website itself but use the feed to consume the content.
This post is from the Newsniche website and should not be reproduced elsewhere. Why not subscribe to the RSS feed and get this information delivered straight to your News reader.
Read MoreShiver Me Timbers!
Shiver Me Timbers!
For the fans of Captain Jack!...
A SpringWidgets Pirates of the Caribbean countdown clock to put on your profile or blog!
Those of you who have seen my MySpace profile and noticed the skull and crossbones that I use as my profile picture, you have probably figured out that I'm a big fan of pirates.
So much so that I figured that we just had to create a countdown to what will probably be, in my opinion, the biggest movie of the year . . . Pirates of the Caribbean!
Being somewhat piratical ourselves, the team can really relate to the need for blue ocean waters, treasure and wearing silly three cornered pointy hats.
By the way . . . take a look at the bottom of the widget...
Fans of our widgets will notice that the "pop" button has moved from the upper right to the lower left of the widget and it now has a couple of friends, an "options" button and a SpringWidgets logo.
Don't worry, the Pop button will still give you one click downloading of the widget to your desktop if you have the SpringWidgets application installed . . . we just moved it so that it would look better on some of the odd shaped widgets that we are seeing in the gallery.
If you take a moment and click on the options button, you can see that we have added in a few, well... "Options" to the widget. You can now copy the code directly in the widget, download the widget from the menu, jump to the customize/share it page and learn more about the widget you are looking at.
I hope that you like the changes and find that the added functionality enhances your widget experience. If you like the widget and have a moment, stop by our community page and send a note to the team letting them know.
I'm going to go dress up like a pirate now and try and find some buried treasure.
-Don
For the fans of Captain Jack!...
A SpringWidgets Pirates of the Caribbean countdown clock to put on your profile or blog!
Those of you who have seen my MySpace profile and noticed the skull and crossbones that I use as my profile picture, you have probably figured out that I'm a big fan of pirates.
So much so that I figured that we just had to create a countdown to what will probably be, in my opinion, the biggest movie of the year . . . Pirates of the Caribbean!
Being somewhat piratical ourselves, the team can really relate to the need for blue ocean waters, treasure and wearing silly three cornered pointy hats.
By the way . . . take a look at the bottom of the widget...
Fans of our widgets will notice that the "pop" button has moved from the upper right to the lower left of the widget and it now has a couple of friends, an "options" button and a SpringWidgets logo.
Don't worry, the Pop button will still give you one click downloading of the widget to your desktop if you have the SpringWidgets application installed . . . we just moved it so that it would look better on some of the odd shaped widgets that we are seeing in the gallery.
If you take a moment and click on the options button, you can see that we have added in a few, well... "Options" to the widget. You can now copy the code directly in the widget, download the widget from the menu, jump to the customize/share it page and learn more about the widget you are looking at.
I hope that you like the changes and find that the added functionality enhances your widget experience. If you like the widget and have a moment, stop by our community page and send a note to the team letting them know.
I'm going to go dress up like a pirate now and try and find some buried treasure.
-Don
Functions 3D 1.3
Functions 3D 1.3
Quickly plot mathematical functions in 3D using the Functions 3D Opera widget Quickly plot mathematical functions in 3D using the Functions 3D Opera widget (read more)
Quickly plot mathematical functions in 3D using the Functions 3D Opera widget Quickly plot mathematical functions in 3D using the Functions 3D Opera widget (read more)
John Chow vs Shoemoney RSS competition
RSS is now one of the most valuable metrics on the net. Increasing your RSS subscriber count is a measurable way to show the popularity of your site. As RSS is an opt in way for readers to view your site contents, they can easily stop being a subscriber at any time.
It shows how far RSS has come when John Chow and Shoemoney start a competition to see who can get the most new subscribers in a month. Notice how it wasn't a competition to get the most traffic or the most subscribers to an email list but who can get the most RSS subscribers.
Why RSS subscribers
John and Shoe are both canny marketers and know the value of RSS. RSS is a transparent metric that shows a loyal readership. If a site starts to slide in it's content then readers will no longer subscribe. They would rather gain an RSS subscriber than an extra visitor.
Whilst the challenge is a bit of fun there is also a serious reason John and Shoe have gotten together to run this little competition. At the end of the competition they will both have a larger loyal subscriber base. This competition has gained them a large number of new subscribers which generally means more revenue for them.
This post is from the Newsniche website and should not be reproduced elsewhere. Why not subscribe to the RSS feed and get this information delivered straight to your News reader.
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