widgets

Widgetbox has rolled out a new and fun widget-creation tool for blog readers and creators to make their own widgets called Blidgets. A typical Blidget pulls the latest stories or posts from your blog and presents it in a small, customizable widget. All it needs from you is a URL or an RSS feed, and the Blidget maker takes care of the rest. You can even set the Blidget to show pictures and text from a blog's posts. It's all very simple and easy to set up.

When you're done with your Blidget, you can publish it … Read more

Planet Minibox gives you an embeddable shoutbox you can put anywhere on your blog or Web site. Visitors can leave a message or strike up a conversation with others in real-time. Think of it as a mash-up of comments, instant messages, and a full-fledged forum. What separates a Planet Minibox shoutbox from others is the tabbed interface that lets you strike up private conversations with another user simply by clicking their name.

Despite its fairly simple user interface, the administrative back-end of Planet Minibox is quite advanced. If you're comfortable with managing user accounts, your Planet Minibox doubles as … Read more

Buzzvote is a free polling service that lets users create and share their own polls. Once made, users can share their polls through a variety of social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, Digg and Furl. You can also embed the poll in any Web page or blog. There are other services that do this, including BlogPoll and Pollpub, but Buzzvote has a really simple and easy-to-use interface.

After registering (which doesn't require your e-mail address), Buzzvote will keep track of all the items you've voted on, as well as show you current results for each. What it'… Read more

Box.net is a file hosting service for individuals and groups. They've got a really great customizable widget you can put on your blog or Web site that lets you share files with anybody. Even better, the Box widget provides instant previews of images and music. The files reside in your Box.net storage area, which provides its users with 1GB of free storage and more with paid plans. As the widget owner, you can even upload files through the widget, without having to manage things at Box.net. It doesn't get much simpler.

[via SexyWidget]

You know, it's about time. It's been a while since one of Silicon Valley's big guys snapped up one of the Web's start-ups du jour--so long, in fact, that all sorts of wild and speculative rumors had started to swirl about which companies would inevitably be buying Digg and Facebook before 2006's end. Neither deal happened. But yesterday's uber-late-night reports from Forbes' Quentin Hardy and GigaOM's Om Malik have revealed that, as speculated, it looks likeYahoo has purchased the pseudo-social-networking service MyBlogLog for an undisclosed price, though it's rumored to be … Read more

Home telephones are like TV sets of the '70s and '80s--except for the cordless breakthrough, technology has seen scant change compared with other consumer products. VTech wants to change that with its new "infoPhone" (not to be confused with the iPhone, thank you very much).

The landline handset is designed to handle many functions that most people reserve for the computer. As Gadgetell says, "The new ip8300 infoPhone uses the Internet to access information directly on the cordless handset's color LCD screen, including news headlines, weather reports, horoscopes, local directory searches and more"--all according … Read more

Today Widgetbox launched its new syndication metrics service for widget developers. Fancy name aside, this service lets users keep track of how many visitors are using the Widgetbox widgets on their MySpace profile, their Web site, or any other online location. Once you've registered your widgets, you can easily monitor their usage with a simple dashboard that offers data visualization such as graphs and charts. It's a cool tool for individuals to track basic traffic, but it holds more potential for attracting advertisers' attention to the potential for money-making widgets.

Widgetbox has had their syndication metrics service charting … Read more

Social networking site, Bebo, has added widgets to its repertoire of music, photo and video-sharing features for profile pages. The Bebo Widgets, so far, are mainly different types of slide shows from Bebo photos, or photos you upload for free from one of three photo-sharing sites: Photobucket, Rockyou and Slide. Once you have created a slide show on one of the sites, it generates an HTML tag that can be cut and pasted. Bebo allows you to paste the slide show as a widget into a Bebo profile page.

Music, graphics and auto-update features can be incorporated into the widgets, … Read more

MSN Direct and Melitta released a whole-bean coffeemaker that displays the weather in real time Thursday. It is also an FM receiver that links to the MSN Direct data service.

The Melitta Smart Mill & Brew Coffee Maker with MSN Direct Region-Specific Weather displays the temperature, chance of rain, time of sunrise and sunset, and the daily forecast. Gadget freaks and caffeine addicts alike can buy the coffeemaker on Amazon.com and in Sharper Image stores for about $200.

The coffeemaker joins a series of smart objects on the market that act as widgets. MSN Direct also offers WeatherNow, a … Read more