I've did away with the poll widget in the sidebar to make room for the new "Live Blog Activity" widget by Wowzio. I may do polls again later, we'll see. The polls were not as active as I would have hoped, so it was time for something new.
Here's the results from the poll before I removed it. "More posts about...": Me (the author) 2, Ketchikan Alaska 1, Random crap 3, and Other blogs 3. I I'll keep it in mind that random crap and other blogs ranked the highest. I was actually a little surprised that Ketchikan, Alaska didn't get more votes.
Anyway, back to the new widget. I think it's pretty nifty. Whenever a page on the blog loads, it gets the user's location and source. It then sends that information to every open instance of the widget on the blog. So any new entries in the widget you see appear are live. It obtains your location based on your IP address. Javascript is required to see the widget, but most everything requires javascript these days anyway. I hope there's enough activity on the blog to make the widget worth it. I'll just have to wait and see.
How did I find this widget? I was checking out some of the links in a recent Blogger Buster article about tutorials and sites for Blogger users. A few of the other links in the article were interesting as well.
It's going to be interesting to watch the widget. Sure, I use Google Analytics to track my traffic. I could already see locations and such of my visitors. But there's just something special about seeing the live hits. Oddly enough, among my most popular articles is More About Sea-Monkeys. If the screenshot I took of the widget is any indication, you'll be able to see the live data to back up that claim. Another popular one is Lots of Google Images.
Please, leave feedback about the widget in the comments if you wish.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
«Live Blog Activity Widget»
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Nifty indeed.
ReplyDeleteYour Sea Monkeys do seem to grab a lot of attention. Speaking of, how are they doing? You were worried about them awhile back.
@ Monique: They're still hanging in there. Though I'm not sure how many.
ReplyDelete=( Are you doing anything or just checking on them now and then.
ReplyDeleteThey need you Marf!!
Their lives depends on you!!
@ Monique: I'm not really doing anything different than I ever have. Perhaps they're getting too inbred and need some new blood. I think I'll dump one of my spare egg packets in there and see how that does.
ReplyDelete*giggle* some new blood
ReplyDeleteThat's a cool tool! Your sea monkeys are still alive? Wow!
ReplyDelete@ |bernadette|: Indeed, they are.
ReplyDeletecool widget! and you have a good site.
ReplyDeleteSo so cool..thanks for the info.
http://eatfoodrecipe.blogspot.com/
The wowzio live activity widget logged my location so incorrectly! I find Feedjit live feed widget better..
ReplyDelete@ Thenu: Yeah, I stopped using the gadget because it was registering every hit to be on the same page, not the actual page that was being viewed.
ReplyDeleteGenerally I do not post on blogs, but I would like to say that this post really forced me to do so! really nice post.
ReplyDeleteIt is remarkable, the useful message
ReplyDeletePlease, can you PM me and tell me few more thinks about this, I am really fan of your blog...
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous (#13): I'd need a way to contact you. Posting as anonymous doesn't tell me much.
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ReplyDelete