Typepad is launching blog widgets

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1. DivineDominion
   

   March 30th, 2006 at 3:54 am

   As I’m interested in future blogging myself, I’d like to try that service, too. An open API is something really cool nowadays, because developers can easily integrate new features. I like this way of software development which seems to be popular today.

   But I miss a function for Last.fm.
   The ordinary exported images of Last.fm are way too big (I don’t need to see “19:30 Wednesday”. A simple “19:30 Wed” or a date would do the job as well. My sidebar isn’t that big.
   Hopefully Typepad will add this stuff later.

2. Jope
   

   March 30th, 2006 at 5:24 am

   Competitive pressure is a good thing for users: http://wordpress.com/blog/2006.....ts-plugin/

   

3. Ivan Pope
   

   March 30th, 2006 at 5:50 am

   You say they are going to ‘open their APIs’ - but at the moment you have to ask them for access and tell them what sort of widget you are interested in making. Then they will ‘review’ your ‘application’ and get back to you. Looks like some sort of filtering going on - which is not exactly ‘open’.

4. Ara Pehlivanian
   

   March 30th, 2006 at 6:01 am

   That’s funny because WordPress just launched their widgets too!

5. Lukasz Karapuda
   

   March 30th, 2006 at 6:56 am

   Widgets are a great way to enable site/blog owners to extend their websites with arbitrary functionality (equivalent to an API for a website). In our WebAssemblyLine™ (http://www.webassemblyline.com/) website lifecycle management system we let users extend their website with ANY widgets they choose. The only requirement is they have to be written in PHP. Once a widget is written and added to the CMS it can be placed on any page of the website with a click of a button.

6. Ivan Pope
   

   March 30th, 2006 at 7:22 am

   Another thing about TypePad widgets - you can’t use them if you use an Advanced Template. Seems the sort of people who may want to use widgets are the sort of people who will have gone to Advanced Templates - which allows you to add widgets anyway (albeit in the raw html). So, revert to normal Templates or don’t use Widgets - your choice!

7. Joe Anderson
   

   March 30th, 2006 at 7:23 am

   Since when can’t people just code themselves.

8. James
   

   March 30th, 2006 at 8:22 am

   Nice. I really like the idea of widgets because there’s loads of little ‘bits’ of code out there and, although it isn’t hard to copy and paste them in, it’s a lot nicer just to ‘activate’ them and move them to where you want.

   I actually implemented a widget system into the blogging engine I released a month or so ago. Not as developed as these major blogging engines though so it’s good to see widgets being incoporated into Wordpress and such.

9. Anil
   

   March 30th, 2006 at 11:12 am

   “You say they are going to ‘open their APIs’ - but at the moment you have to ask them for access and tell them what sort of widget you are interested in making. Then they will ‘review’ your ‘application’ and get back to you.”

   Right now we want to make sure the experience is perfectly smooth as we launch the new feature, and that there’s no concerns about reliability or security with the widgets. We’ve had open APIs for TypeLists and creating posts for years, and our Atom support is completely unfettered (including for creating sidebar Notes) so there’s plenty of options if you want to send data into TypePad without going through the review process that we have in place right now.

   “Seems the sort of people who may want to use widgets are the sort of people who will have gone to Advanced Templates - which allows you to add widgets anyway (albeit in the raw html).”

   Most of our users who are on advanced templates are comfortable enough with HTML that they feel like they’d do this sort of integration themselves, but by all means we hope users who only went to advanced templates to add this sort of functionality will be able to use widgets instead and not have to much with code.

   Basically, the milestone here is about being open enough to have dozens of partners contributing widgets; TypePad’s always had the ability to drag and drop simple sidebar elements like a list of your recent posts. Those things have been around for years — much more interesting is connecting to all the other services and sites you use, and that’s frankly what I’m most excited about.

10. Jennifer Allen
    

    March 30th, 2006 at 12:11 pm

    Eurekster is very excited by this as well. It will simplify the implementation of swickis on sites such as this [see swicki buzzcloud on the top right hand side of this page].

11. Jon
    

    March 31st, 2006 at 12:39 am

    The typo weblog system has had widgets for a while now:

    http://www.typosphere.org/

12. Amanda
    

    March 31st, 2006 at 6:43 am

    WOOT!

13. enrique
    

    March 31st, 2006 at 6:47 am

    How about a widget that allows for pagination? In the year 2006, it is hard to believe that unlike virtually all other blog solutions out there, Typepad offers no way to place a simple next button at the bottom of the screen. Surely this is more important than having ClubMom seemlessly integrate into a blog.

14. Ivan Pope
    

    March 31st, 2006 at 6:51 am

    I’d just like to thank Anil for calmly answering my questions and being informative and reasonable and not rising to my bait! Thanks. Though I’d still like a way to use Widgets in my Advanced Templates without having to reverse out - as there are things in your widgets that aren’t available elsewhere.

15. Umut
    

    March 31st, 2006 at 8:45 am

    Thr Turkish blog sysyem http://www.gaxxi.com has planning in the same time with typepad and wordpress their own widget system to.. it’s funny…

16. Sam
    

    April 24th, 2006 at 9:46 am

    Blogging has definitely changed my life. I was amazed at how quickly the feeling of community came through. I’ve met some great “strangers” on line. I’ve learned from them and been encouraged by them. And spent way too much money on amazon reading the books they recommend.

17. starinova
    

    May 2nd, 2006 at 7:28 pm

    Is typepad in business? Everything is shut down. Typepad. Sixapart. My blog is down.

18. Billy Warhol
    

    June 16th, 2006 at 6:02 pm

    i will certainly take a closer look at both Typepad & Wordpress Widgets!

    & i was just getting the hang of that on Blogger!

    altho the rigamaroll & frustration of “simply” adding links to my blog template was beyond belief hence their “stinky linky’s” handle & by no means any offence to thee cool peeps i’ve started linking too!!

    why in gods name would Blogger even offer a template that didn’t even have a section for Links or a BlogRoll??

    that seems like something that should just be a given!

    what Typepad & Wordpress are doing to make these Cool Widgets added as easily as possible to Everybody’s Blogs is to be Highly applauded!

    Bravo!! ;))

19. web hosting company
    

    September 26th, 2006 at 2:46 am

    Wordpress has less widgets then typepad but the speed of wordpress is better than typepad. Feature wise typepad is better and performance wise wordpress is the best.

20. chang kyu
    

    October 22nd, 2006 at 11:02 am

    Here’s one you guys all missed. Znitch.com adds a blog widget that sms or email notifies your readers with filtering for new blog posts.