Filed under: Fun, Internet, Utilities, Web services
Widgets on demand with Webwag
There are many great AJAX start pages out there like Google, Netvibes, Pageflakes and yourminis , but none of them have what Webwag has going on. Stemming from site feedback, Webwag has developed Widget on Demand, a new tool that allows users to easily create and design widgets from any web page. Users were hard up to find a way that they could easily view content from sites that did not provide RSS feeds for their news service, so Webwag stepped up to the plate. The WOD tool is easy to use: just click "Add new content" from under the Webwag logo, type in your destination URL, select the area that you want your widget to display, and there you go. It does tend to cut content off, and can really only be used for areas that constantly update and change text in the one area you have selected to display. It's extremely simple to make a widget, and very useful if you utilize start pages and want to add content for sites that do not provide RSS feeds.[via centernetworks]
After spending the better part of an hour on 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
webmonkian said 6:29PM on 2-06-2007
oh you cannot be serious "none of them have what webwag have going on" !!!
webwag is a *distant* 5th place behind start page sites netvibes, pageflakes, protopage and yourminis - plus which ever other ones I've forgotten.
If Webwag gain any traction... which i find extremely unlikely considering the quality of their product, then some big websites are gonna actually notice this and sue their asses off. Yes it may be clever, but remember page-scraping or indeed selective framing like this is not good practise and will NOT go down well with the big publishers.
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Bryan Bartow said 12:12AM on 2-07-2007
If this widget could be federated from webwag and resize itself to fit content, it would be awesome. Webmonkian, which of the "big publishers" don't already syndicate their content through feeds?
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webmonkian said 5:08AM on 2-07-2007
Exporting this module is kinda pointless. It's just an iframe which automatically scrolls to a specified area in a page.
It will not be able to resize with the content because javascript cannot work cross-domain for security reasons - therefore it cannot check the size of the content that has been framed. Further to this, the content being framed is just a screen region - not actually a piece of structured HTML. Therefore even if the javascript were able to interact cross-domain then it would be extremely difficult to work out what exactly was the area that needs to be resized.
the example on the webwag blog is a perfect one for a big publisher who might get pissed off. big publishers do *not* offer content for free like this. They offer it on a page supported by the ads next to the content. this is how they make money. Yahoo news offers RSS but only abstracts to the full article. They want you to click through to read the entire article which is, again, supported by ads
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alex said 11:32AM on 2-07-2007
This is a simple feature to implement. As a matter of fact in yourminis we have a mini browser widget that you can use to do a similar thing.
The reason we have not implemented a widget with this functionality is that we have not had a request for it. In addition there are scalability and content issues around screen scraping.
Finally, the presentation of content that is collected in this fashion is very poor and seldom effective. We are focused on more innovative features such as allowing you to take any of our widgets and embedding them in your personal site / blog / myspace and in the near future the ability to run them on your desktop!
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Franck Poisson said 12:34PM on 2-07-2007
webmonkian> It is not because today we are as you say "distant" that we cannot be #1 tomorrow. Who knows my friend ;-)
Small , big or what ever size publisher: they love WOD. It is a loyalty service for them. At the end of the day, we WOD our favorite sites/blogs most of the time. Plus, for their ad impressions, the WOD hits their ad server.
Alex> Our users DID ask us this feature. We are pleased to deliver it.
I am happy to see that what you call "more innovative features" has already been available on PageFlakes for a few weeks and is also in our roadmap ;-)
Last, WOD is just the beginning of new wave of innovation at Webwag.
Thank you all for your comments on Webwag :)
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Adam said 4:39PM on 2-07-2007
No one seems to have mentioned that this is just a copy of Apples webclip widget. There's nothing new here, not to mention the fact that the second a site changes it's layout, or position of that content, the user will have to reconfigure this widget making it a pain to use. While it is useful in the short term, I think more emphasis should be put on the syndication of content and finding ways to make it something that is both beneficial to both the consumer and content provider.
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webmonkian said 5:44PM on 2-07-2007
franck, good luck in your quest vs the already established players.
i don't agree with your point re: publishers liking WOD. For a start, whilst it's true that it increases their ad impressions, most likely the ads won't even be visible so this reduces their CPM. Anyway, time will tell. Look forward to seeing what you guys release next...
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