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TypePad introduce Widgets

Posted By Darren Rowse 31st of March 2006 Blogging Tools and Services 0 Comments

Six Apart has just announced that they’ve added a new feature to TypePad – ‘Widgets’. I’ll let them explain:

What’s a Widget, you ask? It could be a list of your most recent photos, or a topic-oriented search box, or a stats counter, or ads that help you make money, or a badge to help your users subscribe to your feed, or even a Flash game or a chat window. We call it “bling for your blog.” We’re launching with dozens of widgets from more than 30 partners, and more are on the way. Here are just a few of the things you can do with TypePad Widgets:

  • Add your Technorati profile to your blog
  • Share a custom search roll with Rollyo
  • Publicize your FeedBurner feed
  • Let your readers find their next job from Jobster, Indeed and Simply Hired
  • Highlight your favorite lens from Squidoo to your blog
  • Let your readers subscribe to your blog via email, thanks to FeedBlitz

Commerce Widgets – Among the 30 widgets released are a number of ‘commerce’ ones including CafePress TopicAds (make 20% commission on referrals on some sort of automated and relevant ads – you might want to check if AdSense allows this if you are running it on the same blog as them as it sound contextual), PostApp (an ebay widget – it doesn’t say if it’s an affiliate program or not), Fatlens (promote your favorite band or sport’s upcoming events – not sure how this is ‘commerce’), Tumri (a shopping widget – seems affiliate based) and Zazzle (a way to sell your own designs on different products – eg T-Shirts).

I don’t have a TypePad blog so can’t really comment on how it works but after an initial look at it I’d say it’s a good idea but that the ‘commerce’ ones don’t seem to be explained that clearly in terms of what the ‘commercial’ aspect of it is (ie some of them are not clear in terms of if they are affiliate programs or ad programs etc).

If you’re a TypePad user – feel free to leave your experience of Widgets in comments below.

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. Interesting. I’ll have something to play with this evening.. ;)

    Thanks for the heads up.

    Vic

  2. […] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. […]

  3. WordPress has “widgets” now too… :)

  4. Hi Darren – I’m not sure if I’ll use these widgets or not. It seems to me the benefit of them is that users who don’t want to mess with advanced templates and html are now in the loop for using such tools, although a limited selection in my opinion. I am using “widgets” for my blog, but many are not listed in typepad. It’s a good start but a broader selection would be nice. Given that I use advanced templates, I probably won’t use these service and beyond that I don’t want to be limited in what widgest I can use.

    However, I VERY nice addition and a move in the right direction, imo.

    ryan

    (PS – I LOVE your blog here. Very helpful and I’ve been eating it up in the last week, soon reemerge on my blog thanks to lots of your tips on blogging).

  5. […] TypePad introduce Widgets […]

  6. Darren — the TopicAds don’t conflict with Google’s AdSense; as the blogger/affiliate selects the topic for each ad, it’s not considered contextual.

  7. good to hear that Justin. Thanks for the update

  8. […] Heck, the Blogosphere is overwhelmed with this. […]

  9. I use typepad and tried to install the Squidoo widget but got an error…
    So I don’t know what’s happening now. I love the idea though.

  10. RE: Six Apart outreach status update…

    Received: by corpexchange1.jobster.local id ; Fri, 31 Mar 2006 10:21:15 0700 MessageID: Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 10:21:15 0700 From: “Joe Goldberg” …

  11. RE: Six Apart outreach status update…

    Received: by corpexchange1.jobster.local id ; Fri, 31 Mar 2006 11:11:04 0700 MessageID: Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 11:11:02 0700 From: “Ken Woodruff” …

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