One common question among businesses considering Google gadgets or other widgets is basically this…

“Why should I encourage people to use the functionality of my web site without actually visiting my website?”

This question makes sense if someone for example is monetizing their site via adsense. If they display their content elsewhere like iGoogle or Facebook they “lose” the money making part of their website.

The real questions that people should probably be thinking is “Why isn’t my content working for me where ever it is displayed?”

If your goal is branding for example, you can immediately jump into the gadget world and achieve your goals. If your goal is helping your customers then you can jump immediately into gadgets.

To make something available via gadgets, you should ensure that your portable content is accomplishing your goals. If you are not receiving value from your content when it is portable, you may want to start designing content that will.

To illustrate this, let’s look at the Getlisted Google gadget…

This gadget uses the canvas view of iGoogle to display all the information availible about your business, as though you were at the website itself. The entire functionality is there, including the ability to sign in and use your own personal dashboard.

Since the entire functionality is availible via this gadget, there may seem to be no reason whatsoever for a user to ever even visit the GetListed.org web site.

I am okay with that.

GetListed was designed as an absolutely portable being. Wherever and however this content is displayed is fine with me. If a user is using it on Facebook, iGoogle or other widget platforms, it still does it’s job and still provides value to the users and also provides value to to me, it’s creator.

In fact, the way your content is displayed is becoming less up to you and more up to what users want.

The GetListed functionality can be placed on any website by just using an iframe for example.

Here is the same functionality on another website via an iframe at feedthebot.com…

Content portability is fast becoming a web reality.

Is your content ready?

Getlisted Google gadget code is here

Iframe example on Feedthebot is here

Related post to portability is here

I was going to do a post about some basic widget strategies. I asked Brent Csutoras if he wouldn’t mind me using his site, Weird Asia News, as an example for widgets. He said no prob, I have yet to write the post yet, but since I do have a widget made, might as well put it out there (this one is made from Sprout and will be part of a tutorial). The video is ridiculously funny. It is an actual Korean TV commercial.

I will be dong some basic widgets for a few sites as part of an upcoming series. Let me know if you are interested in getting your stuff widgetized.

note to Brent: before you do anything with this widget, email me. I want to use in a test I am doing starting Wednesday or so.

If you read this blog and you are a developer, you probably should let me know I often have work on neat projects.

I have project work for…

Open Social developers (javascript)

Search Monkey (php / xslt)

Facebook (php)

Be part of some of the most popular and innovative applications on the web.

I should also note that We Build Pages is currently seeking a full time, inhouse Perl developer for Troy, NY.

To find out more leave a comment or email me at gadgets [at] gadzi.com

Yahoo Searchmonkey widgets are now live in the search results.

What does this mean? It means that Yahoo has beat Google to third party widgets in search results. It means that those of you who ignored SearchMonkey can no longer do so.

I think in a larger sense what it means is that Yahoo is now going to have more widespread discussion of it’s developer products.

They will also enjoy the free press of such a public and search shattering move.

Oh and local SEO? Cha-cha-cha-cha- changes. Reviews will become quite highlighted and public, and Yelp will reap the rewards as will other companies embracing the Searchmonkey. Look at these results for “Honolulu sushi“. (fifteen percent click thru ratio jump for the pretty searchmonkey results)

Let’s look at what we are talking about, below is a search for a restaurant name…

The Yelp review result has a photo and and other information such as star ratings etc. This is automatically happening, mind you. No subscribing necessary as of July 31st.

This is a very big move.

How far behind is Google on this? Let me tell you. Google subscribed links have existed for years but they still do not show up in results, whereas Yahoo took a project from launch to live in results in less than three months.

I was at the launch party at Yahoo headquarters and it seems like just a few weeks ago.

The commitment they had to this project was very clear from the get go, but I am amazed how quickly they did this. Well done Yahoo!

To learn more about Yahoo SearchMonkey go here.

Vanessa Fox covers this issue more in depth here.

If you need searchmonkey development you can email me for references. If you are doing searchmonkey development, contact me. I am in a project that will rock but needs lots of people.

I am getting on a flight to Chicago this morning (the 29th), I should be there at least a couple of days.

Feel free to email me if you are in Chicago and want to meet. The evening of the 30th I am doing something and the business day of the 31st I am doing something, otherwise I am free.

Terms like semantic web, the social graph, and machine readable link relations are things that people in SEO and marketing typically sorta know about but don’t have a clear grasp on. I want to quickly explain a couple of terms and concepts that are part of the social future of the web and how link relationships can define more than we think. It will take a few posts to do so. Let’s start with XFN and defining link relationships.

Link Relationships:

When we think of a link we tend to think of a “vote” that makes our web properties stronger. Link relationships actually can be machine readable and defined. We all are familiar with “nofollow”, which is entered into links as [rel="nofollow"]. The “rel” part of that stands for “relationship” – as defined by the W3 here.

The only link “rel” that is widely used in the SEO community is the “nofollow” one. This occurs mostly due to Google via Matt Cutt stating that paid links must be”machine readable”.

If links are so important to SEO, then why doesn’t SEO define the relationships of their links?

Links that use XFN are a machine readable (ie Googlebot) way to define links. In other words, while many of you are worrying about changing anchor text around to make your links more natural, you are ignoring the actual existing machine readable way to do the same thing.

XFN

XFN is a standard of social link relationships. Who cares? You do, silly.

XFN and FOAF are really old things but one of Google’s newest API’s is called the Social Graph API and relies on XFN and FOAF data. XFN stands for Xhtml Friends Network.

XFN is the way that social link relationships are defined. In other words, instead of [rel="nofollow"] this new social API relies on things like [rel="friend met co-worker"] which means that I am linking to “a friend who I have actually met who is also my co-worker”

To create XFN machine readable links is pretty simple and we will discuss and illustrate why you might want to start doing it later, but for now let’s see what you can do with XFN. (if you are reading this via feed you won’t be able to see it, so come on over to the site) With this tool you can enter info about your link and define who or what the link is to you. So if you are linking to me for example you would put “Patrick Sexton” in the name field, and then define the rest by choosing which options apply to me…

note: The above tool was created by Matt Mullenweg and modified by me to be widget sized.

The XFN link tool is a really great overview of what relationships can be defined. Friend data, professional data, and even romance data can be defined.

Google Social Graph API

The Google social graph API identifies and displays social connections between links, websites, and people. Most interesting to me is the way the documentation spotlights XFN and FOAF (we will talk about foaf in another post). If Google is basing APIs on XFN and FOAF then that is about as clear of an indication that you can get from the search giant that it is using, and planning to use XFN and FOAF data.
If Google is using XFN, then you may want to know about it.
I will make SEOish “XFN friendly” and when I do I will take some screen shots and create a tutorial, but it is really very simple to do.

XFN Resources

To learn more about XFN go here
To make your site XFN friendly (in four steps) go here
To get the XFN link tool gadget go here

Social Graph API Resources

The API is here

With iGoogle updating to different people at different times, it might seem there could be problems with viewers being able to be use the gadget correctly.

The iGoogle blog article with the solution for this explains that with just an extra content div you can solve this. While the article concentrates on gadgets you are updating from old to new, this information is quite useful for those who have existing open social gadgets in other containers.

You can use this to have a working iGoogle gadget within the directory.

Do the fix, put it in the directory, and you will have a bit of a head start

During Widgetwebexpo, I noticed that there was alot of discussion about paid spread of widgets and almost none about organic spread of widgets. This caused me to change my presentation. There were companies represented there and widget teams that I felt could really benefit from some simple techniques of how to spread a gadget. So I made up a new presentation the night before.
The slides are just the main points of what I discussed, but you might want to check them out.

I would also like to highlight a great presentation about organic widget spread from Google I/O, I spoke of it earlier, but now the entire presentation is up. I recommend watching it.

And here is a great article about getting into widgets, and highlights Widgetbox, one of my favorite widget platforms.

Recently Barry Schwartz highlighted the new iGoogle layout, and how it has started to be released to limited users.

I just wanted to add to that and mention that the new iGoogle layout and features can be seen by anyone via the iGoogle sandbox and is available to developers who request to be included.

To use the sandbox and see the new layout, go here.

A write up I did on the new iGoogle features in April is here

The official Google announcement of the sandbox was here.

The iGoogle API is here.

The official iGoogle developer blog is here.

The video that accompanied the announcement…

Code examples from the Video
Canvas view
Friends and updates

One big change that developers should know about is that the allowable width of iGoogle gadgets is smaller in the new layout (where it was 300 pixels, it is now 260 pixels).
I highly recommend anyone developing Google gadgets to apply for the sandbox and check their gadgets in the new layout.

LinkedIn has been pretty specific about their intentions for Open Social. They plan to have useful, business orientated widgets only. At Google I/O they also mentioned they would be revenue sharing in a “unique” way. Hmmm.

To see what they said (and what all the other social networks said) about their Open Social implementations you can watch the full “Meet the Containers” session from Google I/O.

But that is the future, there are a couple “widgets” that already exist for Linkedin, they aren’t Open Social but we can see how they will handle widgets from what is already there. The widgets page, the “about applications” page, and the “authorized applications” page (you must be logged in to see the “authorized applications” page)

Let’s look at a widget created by BusinessWeek for Linkedin that displays how many connections you have to a company, let’s look at Google:


The widget displays the amount of people you are linked to in Google if you are signed in, if you aren’t signed in it will show you how many people work at the company and prompt you to sign in.
When I am signed into Linkedin it displays this for me (image below).

This widget is quite useful for your readers because it allows them to see who they are connected to at that company.

I think it would also be a great widget for company blogs. If you run a company blog, this could be in your sidebar and would encourage interaction with your company.

BusinessWeek uses this gadget, but use the “popup” version. Here is used in a story about HP…

If you click on “linkedin connections” you get…

So if I read the story, and I needed to respond to it, or if it reminded me that I needed to contact someone at HP, I could immediately do so without having to look that contact up.

How to install the Linkedin widget

The instructions for installing the different versions of this widget are here, but it might be confusing if you want it to display in a blog sidebar because part of those instructions tell you to put something in the “head” section of your page. To do this in WordPress, just go to the “Presentation” tab and then choose “theme editor”

once you are in the theme editor, look to the right and choose “header”…

After you choose header you can add the provided code into the head section, save, and then put the rest of the code in your post using the “code” tab.

Remember that the “span” value has to match the first value of the code and the company name is the second value…

To choose a different company, just change the second value (the first value is the “span” id).