StickiWidgets

Read/WriteWeb has a great write-up on “Business Models For Start Pages”. It’s definitely a good read for those of you interested in the various companies and the business around it. In particular we like the following paragraph regarding “The Widgetizing of the Web”.

So widgets/gadgets are ramping up to be a key part of the Web platform going forward, which all the start pages (big and small) are ideally placed to leverage. And the smaller start pages have certainly not shied away from building up their platforms. Pageflakes now has 100 “flakes” (i.e. widgets) and recently introduced more customization options. Likewise, Netvibes is putting in a lot of work on their module ecosystem. - Read/WriteWeb

The article puts the start page products and services in very good light and with a decent future ahead. Time will tell…

For those of you less concerned about the business and more interested in start pages as a user, you should give the post and its comments a quick read for links to various products and services. Give them a spin, you might find one that you like.

Don’t forget that we have a widget for managing and staying in contact with your Stickam friends. The widget is currently in preview mode and has been tested to work with Pageflakes, Netvibes and other services.

Read that Netvibes hit 5 million users so we decided to go check them out. Netvibes is another web based start page much like Pageflakes. It also includes a Web Page Module which we were able to use with our Contacts widget.

The Stickam Contacts Widget seems to be working well and if the trend of Web Page modules/flakes continues, we will most likely continue with our current approach. By developing only one version of the widget, we will be able to better control and manage the service. We do not have the resources to develop and maintain separate widgets for each of these services. While site specific widgets would have more interesting features, we believe that this approach is still the best at this time.

We are announcing the functional preview for the Stickam Contacts widget. This is a preview so its features are limited. Please read and understand this entire post before trying and using the preview. Use at your own risk, security and stability were not a priority or focus for this release. The preview is subject to bugs and changes. However, we will try to make announcements with as much lead time as possible and limit changes during the initial preview period.

The intent is to preview the current design and obtain feedback from users. Future features and development will be determined partly from the response we receive.

Features:

• hosted standalone widget - can be used anywhere a web page can be included
• simple registration
  • attempt login
  • if already registered then validate login
  • if not registered then create registration
• add contact - Stickam “Profile Names”
• enter “Alias” for display (optional)
• status icons (live, chat room, online, offline)
• delete contact
• opens Stickam Player, Chat Room or Profile as appropriate
• auto updates every 5 seconds - no need to refresh page
• logout

Limitations and Disclaimers:

• preview status - subject to bugs and changes
• completely cookies based - for ease of prototyping
  • data is only accessible from the computer that registered and created the list
  • cookies are set to expire after 30 days
  • expire date is reset at last refresh of contacts list
  • if you delete your cookies, all data will be lost
• basic encryption and security - do not rely on this
• system is not optimized
• there may be race conditions

Basic Usage Example - Pageflakes:

• go to Pageflakes
• click on “Add Flake” (top left)
• select “Web Page” from list
• enter
  http://stickiwidgets.com/widgets/stickam_contacts/
• click “Go” (this should load the login page)
• uncheck “Show toolbar”
• check “Store as Home Page for Flake”
• click “Save”
• click “Add flake to page”
• configure as normal
• enjoy…

Basic Usage Example - Bubbles:

• open Bubbles Settings
• enter
  http://stickiwidgets.com/widgets/stickam_contacts/
• click “Add”
• configure as normal
• enjoy…
• Note 1: new windows do not pop up with the Bubbles Gecko Rendering Engine, but the contact list still functions and updates as normal
• Note 2: this makes Stickam function more like an Instant Messenger video chat client

Other Usage:

• blogs
• websites
• start pages
• basically anywhere you can add a web page for viewing or iframe is allowed
• or… open a browser and go to
  http://stickiwidgets.com/widgets/stickam_contacts/