Blogging Sueblimely

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.Lijit is a search tool that offers a lot more features than the run of the mill default blog searches. I have just installed the Lijit Widget (Wijit) in my sidebar. Automatic installation is available for Blogger and Typepad via the widget setup and there is a brand new Lijit Wordpress plugin that gives you the option of using Lijit as a stand alone search or incorporating it into the default Wordpress search widget.

Features

• Optional addition of some or all of your bookmarking, social networking and photo sites to Lijit will allow search of not only your blog posts but of sites you have bookmarked, your blogroll sites and your social networking contact’s posts and their contacts and bookmarks. Most of the popular sites are included although my favorite bookmarking site, diigo, is as usual not included. There is also a feature to add feeds and site url’s so adding my diigo bookmarks feed solved this problem for me.
  The search result window shows tabs for results from your blog, your network, your content (on any site), and the web. You set your widget’s default search to show one of these tabs as the front page of the results. I have set mine up to show search results from my blog first. I recommend this as you will keep searchers on your own site longer if the search term brings up satisfactory results in your blog (in terms of what the user wishes).

• Choose to have your search results show up only on the Lijit site or in your blog window via a pop up screen.
• Statistics available on your Lijit page will give you information about:
  • the number of times you have been searched,
  • the results that have been clicked,
  • information sources that have provided the most clicked results,
  • blogs that have linked to you,
  • searches that have brought people to your blog .

You can choose to make your statistics publicly viewable.
Widgets can be created to display some recent reader stats on your blog via a list or map:

• An optional “Surprise me!” button produces a list of random content from your blogs and added services - and the results did surprise me as MyBlogLog blogs, that I was not even aware of, showed up there. (MBL automatically adds blogs that you have visited a certain number of times) I may remove MyBlogLog from my options so that results are more relevant to my blog topics.

• A feature named ‘Re-search’ displays extra information for those reaching your blog via a Google search. Here are the results which showed up after I had done a Google Search for “blogging sueblimely images”.For this example, I had to use my blog name in the search terms so that I guaranteed that one of my posts came up in a google search! Options allow you to either display these results below your widget or across the top of your blog.

Below Lijit Wijit

Top Placement - this image was created by a Lijit preview feature

• The widget can be configured to show ‘Popular Searches’ and ‘content’ icons’ I chose not to include these features on mine, being mindful of above the fold sidebar space and page load time, but this is what they would have looked like had I installed them:

• Along with search results comes an option to add a search of the blog you are searching to your browser search engines.
• Lijit uses Google search but also has its own search infrastructure. Om Malik reports that there are plans to add an opt-in ad network to search results and to allow publishers to sell their own keyword inventory in as well as giving them the opportunity to “use Lijit to back-fill the advertising spots”

Advantages of using Lijit Search on your blog:

• Lijit search stats are very useful and are displayed in a simple to understand way.
• The browser search engines feature is useful for yourself to add for a quick search of your own blog as well for others to add to encourage others to revisit your content..
• Searching of your blogroll and social networking contact sites. This could be seen as a resource for your readers as well as a way of recognizing your blogging contacts - another form of link love.
• When results
• Search of your bookmarking sites is another resource for your readers to tap into. I consider my online bookmarking sites a research tool for you, adding links that I think you would find useful relating to topics I cover here, rather than using them for personal purposes. I already display my diigo bookmarks so for me the Lijit search is an extension of this principle. As you will know, if you read this blog often, I tend to ignore SEO recommendations for more incoming links than outgoing as I wish to provide useful information, whether written by myself or others, and to give recognition to the good blog content of my contacts. .
• Keeping the search result window on your blog, rather than purely on the Lijit site, will retain your readers on your site for longer.

Setup was simple and, if you change your preferences, you do not have to alter the widget code as new or changed features are automatically added. The widget itself did not seem to impact my page load time although the search results are a little slow to show up. Disadvantages - yet another widget added to your sidebar and for me another tool to divert me away from my tasks at hand today - my (semi) regular news post and a tutorial on Yahoo Buzz - which now allows anyone to add content a la Digg but with some different and useful features.

Popularity: 11% [?]

I have recently been trying out PhotoCrank, a kind of annotation/comment system for web images, and have had some fun browsing blogs that have installed this feature.

PhotoCrank allows the addition of word bubbles, graphics, comments and tags to any photo on any website. Those who have installed the browser extension can use the feature on any photo of any website.. In addition to the actual cranks, comments can made relating to those cranks.

If you add the Photocrank engine to your blog then any reader can use the feature on the images you have enabled for its use. You retain control over the comments and can delete those you do not think suitable. You can of course add your own annotations too. A widget is available for websites which shows the Cranks you have created yourself. PhotoCrank has been out for a while but a new version has recently been implemented with extra features.

An example is probably the best way to explain the concept: The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, by the fake Steve Jobs, uses Photocrank and I think his blog is a prime example of good usage. Some of the comments are hilarious. You can see an example of the PhotoCrank widget in his sidebar too: Here is an example from his post entitled:

Confession: I have a really hard time deciding what to order in restaurants

Image before pressing the play button:

Image combining three of the comments

Total Diatribe is running regular “photo caption contests” using PhotoCrank

There are hundreds of images and blank bubbles to chose from. When you find those you like you can add them to favorites to find them again easily. Here is an example from one page of my favorites library:

The “Cranked” photos are displayed on the PhotoCrank website and your crank’d photos get syndicated throughout the PhotoCrank network of blogs, providing some extra link love for your site. Members can “follow” others I can see some blogs would find this a useful plugin to create a conversation around their published images in general or as a feature to use on designated posts only. Personal bloggers could write posts specifically for publishing images to be cranked. One blog I think would be ideal for the plugin is MagnetoBoldToo - little to her knowledge I have added cranks to a couple of her recent posts.

(For anyone already using PhotoCrank on their blogs, a new method of disabling cranks on individual images has just been implemented. In the PhotoCrank Options Menu on published photos (the gray button on the bottom right of the photo) click on Adminstration and uncheck the Allow Image To Be Cranked option)

PS - This is for Kelly who was keen to find out what PhotoCranks I had left on her blog images. The first is on the Mosh post and the second on the Be afwaid. Be vewy afwaid Sweet Potato image. Very corny I know.

Popularity: 7% [?]

New Ripple Widget

Thanks to a great new blogging forum (still in beta so not yet open for public registration) I found out about a new Google Search alternative, Ripple. Using the Google search engine, all searches done through Ripple generate funds for Australian Charities ( all are charities that operate internationally) as does clicking on sponsored ads on the Ripple site. 100% of the money earned goes to the charities. The widget currently displayed at the top of the right sidebar is only one of a few available “splashpond” buttons available.

Criteo Widget

So far the results of using the Criteo widget (top of far right sidebar) have been disappointing - it has not resulted in any visitors at all to this blog. Here are the stats:

Criteo AutoRoll generated 0 visit on this blog, by 0 unique visitor. This blog link was displayed 12753 times on other blogs using Criteo AutoRoll and was seen by 3002 unique visitors.

This blog is getting plenty of exposure, having been displayed nearly 12753 times but it seems that no-one has been clicking on my link. Although Criteo is meant to intuitively match you to blogs similar to your own, I have not seen this happen. There have been lots of mobile phone sites listed??. I am going to continue to monitor the results, having changed my category choices in Criteo options. I have now chosen more general categories rather than web and tech. Criteo allows you to delete sites from the widget if you do not think them suitable. The term it uses for this is “blacklisting” a term, which is a little off-putting as I do not like the idea of “blacklisting” perfectly valid and often good blogs just because the subject matter is not relevant to this site.

One feature I like is that Criteo widget loading does not hold up the loading of the rest of the this page. It appears after the rest of the sidebar has loaded. Much better than the slow loading widgets that do delay page loading. MyBlogLog and other social networking sites should take note!

I notice from the Top 500 English-written blogs using Criteo AutoRoll list that a couple of people I know are also using the widget - Colin of Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe and Lady Banana. Perhaps you could let me know if the widget has been of use to you? The same goes for anyone else who uses the widget reading this post. Your feedback would be appreciated. I will not give up on the widget yet but continue to monitor it to see if my preference changes make any difference.

Feedjit Widget

Although I could get similar stats from other programs I am enjoying this widget. Not only is it interesting finding out where my visitors are coming from geographically, it has been very useful to have a readily available source of information on where visitors are hailing from and which posts they are reading. It is a little large and therefore intrusive so if I do decide to keep it I will move it further down the sidebar.

Entrecard

The Entrecard widget has produced a reasonable amount of visitors to this blog. The nature of the Entrecard program does mean that members will have a look at other member sites, but this does not necessarily translate the visitors into readers. Members check out sites to see if they are worth spending their entrecard points on to advertise their own sites - they may have no interest in actually reading the blog they visit. This is no different to most traffic promotion sites/schemes; with most of them it is the number of visitors that matters. The more visitors that arrive, the more likely hood there is of at least some of them returning as regular readers.

I am going to keep this widget in place for a while longer. One advantage it has over other traffic exchange type programs is that you can choose what blog is going to appear on the widget - you do not have to compromise your blog’s integrity by advertising sites for the sake of it. My initial enthusiasm for checking out and accepting or rejecting requests for others to advertise on my widget soon waned however. This is why you are mainly seeing my face instead of another blog’s logo.

I am going to the Entrecard site now to approve some blogs that I think are appropriate to advertise here; those that are either of use in contributing to my blog topics or those that are just good reads.

Popularity: 4% [?]

When I find new blog addins or widgets that I think may be of interest I add them to my sidebar - to either just feature them for a while or, as in the case of the Criteo Auto Roll, to try them out.

The blogs listed in the roll are meant to be based on the links that are clicked on by readers of this blog, with the aim of providing the links of most interest. Being newly installed, the links will not yet reflect this. If you are interested in tracking how accurate this is, you could click on links that interest you when you visit here and follow the progress of the roll, as I will be doing.

My own link will be displayed on other blogs too which is meant to increase incoming traffic. This will be something I will monitor too. I will be checking my blog stats to see if much traffic is coming my way from the widget. Traffic on its own is not of particular importance of course, it is returning readers that matter. If the roll does as it is meant to, the visitors that result should be those who have an interest in this blogs topic. In theory this should increase subscriptions and readers. I am a little skeptical of this but I will reserve my judgment until I have tried it for a while. I will let you know if it is of use.

Popularity: 2% [?]

This weeks widget comes from from Digg. As you can see, from the image below, the widget is configurable. I have chosen to show posts dugg by my digg friends but you can also choose posts by subject, digg member or website. If you choose a particular user, you then have the option to display news that they have either dugg, commented on, submitted or their most popular. The display is customizable by choosing from one of 5 templates or choosing your own custom colors. You are able to specify a height and width, whether to show digg count or not and you can display titles only or a title with description.

I chose to customize my widget to match my blog colors; using Color Cop to pick out the colors I wanted. This gave me the color numbers to enter into the widget’s template color customization fields. (There is a clear tutorial on how to use the color cop tool on the Color Cop website.)

Widgets alexa

Popularity: 2% [?]

Bloggers tend to either love ‘em or hate ‘em but if you are in the first group here is a new site for you. Fancy Gems contains quite a few new unusual fun widgets such as a lava lamp, fancy text and banner generators.

Not really having use for more widgets I thought I would give one of the more frivolous items a go, The Secret Message Scratcher.

Riddle
What does man love more than life?
Fear more than death or mortal strife?
What do the poor have, what the rich require,
And what contented men desire?
What does the miser spend, the spendthrift save,
And all men carry to their graves?

Answer

Widgets, sueblimely alexa

Popularity: 2% [?]

I would like to be able to retain more of the widgets and plugins that I talk about on my sidebar; as examples. Page loading time suffers if I do. Instead I am going to feature one at a time and will create a separate page for those I take off.

If you enjoy including widgets I recommend that you use very few and preferably those with direct relevance to your blog topics.

To start the ball rolling I am featuring a widget of widgets, that is a slideshow containing Widgetbox Widgets.

If you have a favorite widget that you would like to recommend to others please post a comment letting me know what it is. Leave you web address, if you have one, so that I can acknowledge your contribution.

Popularity: 2% [?]

9952 Google Gadgets to add to your website - and counting

These are a gadget lovers dream. Don’t worry I am not going to list them all.

All Gadgets

Categories of Gadgets:

• News
• Tools
• Communication
• Fun & Games
• Finance
• Sports
• Lifestyle
• Technology

Here is my interpretation of what the categories should be; with a few examples:

Here is the Google Social Network Search Gadget:

Popularity: 2% [?]