Sticki Widgets

Chris Pirillo posed a semi-challenge to us a while ago. With new work, projects, holidays, etc. We just haven’t gotten around to it. Finally, here are the results of the request (more of a nudge than challenge or request) from Chris.

“Glad you liked it. You should totally use our API to create bLaugh widgets for “WordPress, Stickam, MySpace, Friendster, et al” - what say you?” - Chris Pirillo (2006.11.26)

Yes, that was from a long time ago. Hey, better late than never. So here you have it. Drum roll please… Presenting the bLaugh widget…

This is a flash widget that allows anyone to cut and paste the code below to any site (most sites any ways). It will present the latest bLaugh comic on load and allow you to cycle through the 20 latest comics from bLaugh. Clicking on the comic image or title should take you to the bLaugh page for that comic.

Tested and working with WordPress. You can use embed to put on a MySpace profile. However clicking on the comic or title will not take you to bLaugh.com. This is a security measure put in place by MySpace. We are currently working with Stickam to get our domain and widgets white listed for their site. Should not be a problem, just a matter processing the request.

This is a very basic widget so feedback is welcomed and enhancements will be made, time permitting.

Update: Stickam has approved our request for allowing our widgets on their system. However, they also employ the same security measures as MySpace. As a result, we have added a couple of simple links to the code for both bLaugh and StickiWidgets. We ask that you include the links when you use the widget.

Update #2: We have updated the widget for site like MySpace and Stickam that insert the tag allowNetworking=internal on the embed. Go to the bLaugh Widget page for the new code.

<embed src="http://stickiwidgets.com/widgets/blaugh/blaugh.swf" quality="best" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="447" height="270" name="blaugh" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /><br /> <a href="http://www.blaugh.com" title="bLaugh">bLaugh</a> widgetized by <a href="http://stickiwidgets.com/blaugh-widget/" title="StickiWidgets: bLaugh Widget">StickiWidgets</a>

What does Guinness beer have in common with widgets? We didn’t know either. That is… until we were enlightened by the post over at Widgify, “The Mother of All Widgets…” Apparently, the little device in a can of Guinness beer which creates the creamy head is referred to as a widget.

From the Guinness FAQ:

What is the widget - and how does it work?

Glad you asked. The widget is a plastic moulded device that sits on the top of the contents of each can of GUINNESS® Draught. When the can is opened, a small amount of beer and nitrogen, trapped in the widget, is forced out through the beer, which creates the famous creamy head that you find on a pint of GUINNESS® Draught served in a pub. The widget gives GUINNESS® Draught in cans the taste and texture of a pub-poured pint at home. In GUINNESS® Draught in bottles, the clever little ’rocket’ widget floats free in the beer to refresh the creamy head of your GUINNESS® Draught with each swig you take from the bottle.

Maybe the world does revolve around beer.

PSA: Please drink responsibly.

To help bring in the New Year, we have updated and optimized our data services. All data provided by StickiWidgets is now updated at 5 minute intervals. This should help everyone who is using our widgets and/or services. Unfortunately, due to technical limitations and the nature of real-time events, 5 minutes is about as a good as it’s going to get and you will occasionally miss someone.

All image widgets have also been set to be re-generated every 5 minutes. As a result, the status chicklets and chat room images will now be more accurate.

Both the Serendipitous Chat and Kismet Chat sites also benefit from this update. Additionally, we have new code on these two sites to make on-demand checks with Stickam before returning “Live” users. The outcome is significantly fewer off-line users.

Keep in mind; this is completely on our side. Stickam itself also caches their data so the actual freshness of the data is our interval plus theirs. However, their update interval should be significantly faster than ours so it should not be much more than 5 minutes combined.