Sticki Widgets

Derek over at Widgets Lab did a quick mashup of Google Blog Search and Grazr to give us a nice widget news widget. Basically the Google Blog Search, “widget” and “webwidget”, is provided in RSS format and fed into Grazr, an OPML/RSS feed reader. If you need to keep up-to-date on widgets then this could be a what you are looking for. Or, if you like the concept, you can create your own blog news widget in a few minutes.

Head over to Widgets Lab for more details and the functional widget.

Derek over at Widgets Lab reminded us that we never officially announced the release of our Search Widget based on the Google AJAX Search API. The original idea was taken from the AnswerTips Widget and spawned from these posts (#1 and #2).

Go to the StickiWidgets Search Widget permanent page for more details and installation instructions.

Here is a quick summary.

• multiple word select (phrases)
• single word select
• default searches (Google AJAX Search API)
  • Google Web Search
  • Dictionary.com Definitions
  • WikiPedia English
  • Answers.com
• to activate: highlight text then press q

A slightly more integrated version of the widget is enabled on this site. Highlight any text and press q to try it out.

There is obviously more work that can be done so comments and feedback are always welcomed.

We posted a quick review of the AnswerTips Widget the other day. Unfortunately, the short review resulted in a comment that has bugged us for a couple of days. That comment, in conjunction with some user comments over on Widgetoko’s post on the same topic, has pushed us to prototype a Search Widget much like AnswerTips. In our opinion, it adds some features that we feel are beneficial to the users.

Comments are always welcomed. But, to avoid any confusion, we are not disclaiming the value of the AnswerTips widget. We happen to think it has potential. What we are doing is illustrating some features that we feel are useful to users, especially to users with the same mindset/browsing practices that we have. There will obviously be users who browse differently or think differently.

Key Features:

• multiple word select (phrases)
• single word select
• searches
  • Google Web Search (AJAX API)
  • Google Custom Search Engine
    • StickiWidgets
    • Sexy Widget
    • Sniperoo Blog
    • Widgets Lab
    • Widgify
    • Widgetoko
  • WikiPedia English (via Google)
  • Answers.com (via Google)
• to activate: highlight text then press q

Currently only tested and verified to work with Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7.

Highlight text and then press q (on this site) to see how the prototype search widget works.

Please understand that this is a prototype and does have issues. Feel free to provide feedback. If you are experiencing problems, make sure that the page fully loads. There are several test widgets on this site which cause long load times.