Thursday, December 30, 2010 at 9:43AM Question: What do an Italian football club and a swanky New York/Miami production studio have in common? (Besides a tendency towards on-field and on-screen drama, of course!)
Answer: Forza Pescara and Splashlight have both shown their mobile savvy by building Widgetbox apps to take their sites to your phones.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010 at 10:00AM 
Jeff Remer
Software Engineer
As part of Widgetbox's new staff series—we'll be bringing you occasional guest posts from members of the Widgetbox team.
Twitter has never been stingy with their data. With enough expertise, you can do just about anything you can do on Twitter.com off the site using with their extensive REST and Search APIs. Developers have implemented Twitter-based authentication using Twitter as an OAUTH provider, with some websites providing their own version of Twitter status timelines based on the kinds of information they want to display. The sheer number of Twitter apps, clients, and mashups is a testament to the wealth of data available through relatively simple API calls and REST URLs. Full or at least partial Twitter API implementations are not uncommon, however they are not very lightweight.
Until recently, some of the most desirable types of Twitter API integrations have also been the most difficult, with even the most modest implementations requiring a significant portion of code dedicated to authenticating API calls. Allowing Twitter users to authenticate and tweet off-site have typically required relatively involved API implementations and multi-legged OAUTH requests. While Javascript OAUTH client libraries do exist, they simply mirror unnecessarily verbose server-side implementations. This development approach doesn't align very well with the wealth of data and functions that Twitter has made open from the beginning.
Recently Twitter addressed this challenge and unveiled @anywhere, a simple yet powerful Javascript client library. This lightweight set of tools allows developers to easily integrate Twitter functionality such as authentication and inline tweets. Like Facebook Connect, Connect with Twitter is now available by simply registering a new @anywhere application and including a script tag and a few lines a Javascript. Developers previously had the ability to implement @anywhere to allow users to log into a website using their Twitter credentials, but it was not nearly as concise or flexible.
Once connected, a website implementing @anywhere can offer a Twitter user more functionality including the ability to follow other Twitter users and tweet from inline Tweet Boxes—all without having to go to Twitter.com. Even if a user on a website isn't registered on Twitter, or if they choose not to login with Twitter Connect, developers still get a couple of other benefits by adding @anywhere.
As the number of Twitter users grows, referring to someone's online personality with their Twitter username has become increasingly pervasive. Typically websites do their own linking of Twitter usernames either by hand or through some simple string manipulations. @anywhere provides a method to automatically link Twitter usernames in a given portion of web page automatically. The Twitter @anywhere developers took this feature one step further and introduced Hovercards. By hovering over a linked Twitter Username, a web page visitor can see a preview of a Twitter user's profile and even follow the user without leaving the web site.
Currently @anywhere consists of these few core features: Follow Buttons, Tweet Boxes, Linkify/Hovercards, and Connect with Twitter. However, by implementing Twitter authentication in a simple Javascript library, Twitter is opening up their API even further and could eventually allow for an extensive set of functions based on combinations of their REST API.
Twitter recently announced Blackbird Pie, a tool that allows you to embed static tweets in a web page. Blackbird Pie solves the problem of transcription. In the developer community I think we can expect more features like Blackbird Pie to make their way into @anywhere. Twitter understands that a crucial key to user expansion will be allowing for a programmatic way to embed tweets in a web page and allow users to interact with Twitter content off-site.
Sneak peak: http://blog.twitter.com/2010/03/anywhere.html
Announcement: http://blog.twitter.com/2010/04/its-alive.html
API Docs: http://dev.twitter.com/anywhere
Blackbird Pie: http://media.twitter.com/blackbird-pie/
Make a Twitter Widget at Widgetbox: http://www.widgetbox.com/make/twitter
—When he isn't biking competitively or on his way to be sponsored by Naked Juice, Jeff is a front-end software engineer here at Widgetbox
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 2:22PM Pioneered by Widgetbox, Blidgets are widgets built from your feed-based content: a blog feed + a widget = a blidget!
Simply enter in your blog or feed-based address (URL) and your feed will automatically be converted into a Blidget you can share with others.
Examples of content feeds that can go into a Blidget include:
As with all of our widgets, Blidgets can be placed just about anywhere: MySpace, Blogger, Facebook, TypePad, iGoogle or your favorite website.
To further customize your Blidget and take advantage of some just-released features, Go Pro.
The new features available to Pro subscribers include:
Blidget, Blidget Pro, Blog, Twitter, YouTube in New on Widgetbox Saturday, June 6, 2009 at 3:18PM Twitter is a powerful marketing lever for communications, traffic acquisition and user interaction. But to leverage Twitter, the fact is that you need to build a following... a task that is particularly difficult for fledgling users.
In fact, earlier today, TechCrunch reported that 80 Percent Of Accounts Have Fewer Than 10 Followers.
Widgetbox is introducing a new pilot program to help you utilize Twitter as part of your social media / user acquisition strategy. Based on the chosen package, Widgetbox will:
- build you a custom Twitter widget
- build your Twitter following (either by 1,000, 5,000 or 10,000 followers)
- promote and distribute your widget
Widgetbox can help users and brands either grow their Twitter campaigns OR launch / create their strategies. In either approach, letting Widgetbox grow your Twitter presence will make your marketing efforts more effective and allow you to consistently and more easily grow your following.
The three packages are below. You can contact me directly to get started (ryan@widgetbox.com) or via Widgetbox's Partner page:
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 9:23AM
Mashable had a great article yesterday on Twitter #Hashtags, what they mean and how to use them. For Twitter users, hashtags represent a powerful way to navigate Twitter's activity stream, understand trending topics and find interesting users.
Mashable even recommended using Widgetbox to help navigate your Twitter activity:
"Provide a website widget: For anyone who isn’t using or knowledgeable with Twitter, provide an easy conversation tracker tool on your website. You can make one via Widgetbox"
Here's how you can use hashtags within your Twitter widgets:
1. When creating your Blidget Pro, add a tab for Twitter
2. You will have three content source options: My Updates, My Favorites, and Search
3. Under search, you can enter any text... or enter a hashtag (ie #FollowFriday or #voting)
4. The widget will then dynamically update with posts around the Twittersphere with the hashtag that you set
Blidget Pro, Mashable, Twitter in Development, Tutorials