I built a couple widgets today. Nothing too fancy. They’re first drafts and you’re the beta testers. What needs to be changed, added, deleted, etc? I thought about having the pictures and videos from the trip displkay in the widget, and that’s possible, but I’d personally rather see them for myself on a full screen, not in a tiny one. Thoughts on that too?
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those are so awesome! i cannot wait to love us some kids!
these look great. will you have them up for people to use? wed still going to work for you?
Yes. They’re up for people to use right now. You can click the “share” button and embed them on other sites, e-mail them, etc. Any changes that get made will automatically be updated wherever these things are embedded.
Yes. Wednesday is on.
Excellent job Shaun!
Are we still good for Friday?
FYI -
Can’t get it to work on wordpress.com. I think they have restrictions against the flashplayer or something. It worked fine on an old blogspot.com blog of mine.
Forgot to tell ya…they look great!!
Clint, I’ll pass that on. These are made at a site called Sprout that’s very much in beta. I’m sure they’d like to know they don’t work on the most popular blogging platform. (Geesh, that’s an oversight.)
Anybody else tried these on a WordPress blog and had problems?
I am unabel to get the code to work on wordpress.com.
I tried using the share button and it says login failed. I tried posting the code and it comes up with a blank page.
Thomas
Try it using Firefox. Their FAQ says these things work best with Firefox.
I can’t embed on myspace of facebook using Safari but it works great with Firefox.
Let me know if that works for you, please.
I’m using firefox
I’ll let them know. Thanks, clint.
Same problem with wordpress.
You rock. Which is helpful, I guess, when you’re a musician.
About to test the code at my place.
Hi. Me again.
It works great on WP via Safari, but it’s a smidge wide – could we get a version that’s around 150 wide?
Thank you and have a lovely evening.
I’m REALLY trying to get this thing posted–it’s absolutely fantastic, Shaun, thank you!–but so far no success. I’m going to keep at it….
Hey Shaun,
You did an absolutely amazing job on this widget! Nice job!
I was able to get it to successfully work on Blogger, MySpace and Facebook.
I was wondering if you could make the following adjustmets?
1. Can you remove the Evangelical Outpost and the Family Research Council. He will not be joining us on the trip.
2. Compassion has a Flick page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/compassioninternational/. It might make more sense to point the Flickr link to this page since Keely will be uploading the photos to a Uganda set there.
Also, how did you get into the Sprout system? It says that their solution is in closed beta now. We are working on some new Compassion widget projects and would like to investigate developing them in Sprout
Thank you for your support of Compassion’s ministry to children in need!
Tom Emmons
Internet Marketing Manager
Compassion International
Hey Shaun look forward to working with you tomorrow. It’s my first gig as a compassion rep. We have sponsored a child for 3 years now and we love our kid so much. I was actually in Iraq when my wife made the commitment and I have done nothing but thanked her since. Thanks for all you do.
Blake Leitch
I am using Firefox and can’t get it to load into my wordpress blog either. I’d love to be able to though! Any help from all you computer geniuses out there would be greatly appreciated!
Beth
Everything appears to be working for me – I have no idea how it’s going for my users.
i’m using firebox on a macbook pro. just posted it to my blog (hosted by wordpress) and looks good.
no issues with “share” button as previously stated by others.
They look great. I put one on our blog. We don’t get a ton of traffic, but the folks who read don’t usually come over here.
How’d I get into Sprout? I have secrets, Tom. Many many secrets. (I’m a connected soft rock star. That’s all I can divulge at this time.)
Boo Mamma, I’ll narrow the widget to 150. It should autoupdate everywhere it’s embedded on the “internets” as soon as I do. (I’m in an airport with slow WiFi but I’ll try to get that done before the day ends.)
Thanks for all the input, guys. A note or two: the small widget is made for Typepad side bars (so says the company) and the big one is made for Facebook and Myspace. I had a couple folks ask me via e-mail where on earth they’d put the big one…well, it fits nicely on Facebook and Myspace pages.
Sorry these are so late coming. It took me a while to figure out how to make a widget. Thanks to Dave Halpert for the e-mail link to Sprout.
Keep the suggestions coming.
Updates:
1. Small widget is now 150 pixels wide. How’s that, Boo Mama?
2. Buttons are gray instead of blue.
3. Bloggers not making this trip with us have been removed.
4. Flickr link fixed.
150px widget works great on my site. Now I must add it to Facebook and My Space.
Hey Shaun,
I’m glad to hear that someone got this working on WordPress. We would like to add it to our new blog too and it’s based on WordPress.
The two bloggers (Evangelical Outpost and Family Research Council)not going on the trip are still showing up in the large widget. Can you try removing those again?
Also, what do you think about pointing to Compassion’s Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/compassioninternational/. Keely, our photographer, is planning to upload all of her photos to a set on this Flickr account.
Thanks!
Tom
That is oh-so-excellent, thank you. I’ll buy you a Coke in Chicago.
Mmmm. Coke.
Kat let me know these things were loading slowly for her peeps so I dumbed down the images and rebuilt the widgets. They’re less than half the file size they were on the first draft and they load in less than three seconds for me. Faster for everyone else?
Hi Shaun, I would really like to add the Why Blog widget in the 150 size but can’t get it to work on my wordpress.com blog. Any ideas? Thanks! Mary
this is very useful and very interesting. i must say your site is also decently designed. thanks for this gr8 article.