TheWayoftheWeb

Content and Digital Marketing Specialists

widget

A major problem in promoting Plurk

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It seems as if there are a million Twitter applications, widgets, and ways to publicise your membership and latest Tweets, but things are a bit twickier when it comes to Plurk.

So far, there has been an unofficial API, and third party Plurk tools are thin on the ground. But even more annoyingly, I can’t use the official Plurk widget.

There’s a simple reason. They offer it for users to embed into a Facebook, Myspace, or blog page. But they’ve fixed the width, so trying to display it on this blog, for instance, means the sidebar will be blown apart. And the width is set at 300 pixels wide – way too much for most pages on Facebook or Myspace.

So for the moment, I’ll not be sharing my Plurking as much as my Tweeting.

You can still find me on Twitter. And on Plurk.

Quoted in The Guardian!

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It’s not often that my blog and I get a mention in The Guardian, or linked to! Funny what can happen when you install a widget without being suspicious!

Anyway, the full article is located here.

My job title is slightly inaccurate, as I was working for Emap Consumer Media at the time the article was being written, but the division has since been acquired by Bauer, so is now Bauer Consumer Media.

And editing Disposable Media is very, very much my hobby in my spare time, and one which I’m very fortunate my employers have allowed me to indulge up to this point. It has benefits for the company, in that I tend to be more experimental, and can understand community from two viewpoints…but my main role with Bauer is my employment and main focus..

Why not use the net to do some good…

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I’m surprised I haven’t seen this mentioned on more blogs and tech sites. A new Amnesty International campaign ahs seen their website redone as https://irrepressible.info, targeting internet censorship, which has resulted in prison sentences, and corporal punishment for bloggers etc around the world.

The cleverest part is that you can install a widget in your blog by copying and pasting some code, which then displays snippets of content. The content is material that has led to someone being arrested and imprisoned under censorship laws, and the idea is that if enough people display the widget, the whole point of the censorship becomes meaningless.

I would have though I’d have seen this on countless blogs by now, seeing as it’s something so close to bloggers hearts, but maybe there’s a fear factor involved. If someone’s been arrested in Iraq or China, then maybe bloggers in other parts of the world think they could be next?

Or more plausibly, could it be because Amnesty mention Google (Owners of Blogspot), along with Yahoo etc in their articles?

Whatever, there are static buttons for email, and website use, that look a little like this:

At least if I display the widget I’m only likely to lose a blog, rather than my freedom. And it wouldn’t be the first time my widget has got me in trouble

Don’t overlook the human element

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It’s easy to grab the opportunities a new widget, website or technological advance offers.

But don’t overlook the human resources needed to make it work properly

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