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Widgets
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
I do occasional maintenance on this widget because it has a couple hundred installs, so I should. Its value decreases when it doesn’t include enough timely searches.
(Click on “Search this” to refresh the widget and try another search.)
The rotating content leans heavily to Twitter Search because I think it’s such a fascinating way to get something of a handle on the pulse of opinion. To update it I add searches, and I also check the current searches to see if the results still show recent activity. (See the archive of currently rotating searches as well as retired searches. Note to Expression Engine heads: that archive page shows open entries for the active searches and closed entries for the retired ones—so easy.)
I’m getting to it now; thank you for your patience, just had to set it up. I’ve been surprised that interest in certain search terms has not waned as much as I would have expected. For example, “auto industry” and “iphone+storm” are not in the news as much as they were a few weeks ago when I added them, but they persist in racking up a lot of current results.
A slightly different sort of custom tool that tracks persistence of interest could be useful for research conducted by media outlets, and maybe other types of businesses, but I’m more tuned in to media and think of it first. Examples:
- Mainstream media, like monthly print magazines, having longer lead times, to see what people are still interested in.
- Even for more instant media, like TV or blogs, it could be handy for planning more-produced, better-researched features. If there’s no longevity to public interest in a given topic, it might not be worth the investment.
Of course this assumes there is a spot of value in the idea of enduring interest, and not just in the latest thing. Sometimes I despair of our “newest is all there is” way of looking at news and everything else.
If you wanted to go all radical, you might even say that sustained public interest in a topic maps to its importance and consequence. Nah…
Monday, January 19, 2009
I was struck by a remark on Chris Matthews’s syndicated show yesterday. Katty Kay, a Brit reporting on U.S. politics for the BBC, talked about the positive world opinion of Barack Obama and how his background and understanding of other cultures is viewed as such a welcome break from recent history. It made me feel warm and proud of what we did in electing this guy.
Then I tried to put myself in the shoes and mindset of a typical Fox News watcher listening to the comment and realized that this big-picture way of operating and thinking breeds suspicion and fear among that set. I imagine they’ve been conditioned to reason that if foreigners think it’s a good thing, Americans need to be wary. Isn’t that a rotten shame? God forbid we should look at things from anybody else’s point of view.
The good news is that reason defeated the narrowminded crowd this time; about time. Can the factions get closer on this score? I’m not sure. I mean, it’s not a thing you can compromise about—either you operate in a spirit of being open to possibilities or you don’t. Would we wish for this smart cool new president to meet the closedminded halfway? Maybe the best we can wish for is that, in a new political climate, rigid neo-con views gradually will be viewed by moderates as out of touch and old-fashioned.
I think that’s already happening. When you hear GOP leadership hopefuls talk in generalities about the future, it’s all about opening up, not about closing ranks. What I hear between the lines is “Not what Sarah Palin represents—if your only solid base is the white south, that’s not enough to be a national party.”
As you might know, I’ve been obsessed with widgetmaking. The inauguration countdown widget that I put in the wild back in December 2007—when the idea of tomorrow’s transfer of power to Obama was wishful thinking—has been converted to a countup widget celebrating a new day. I love seeing it displayed with pride on African-American social networks and on blogs like Sicily Scene written by a woman from Wales living in Sicily.
Hey world, we’ve returned to the international community. It feels good to be back. Want to grab a cup of coffee?
Monday, December 15, 2008
It’s nothing Twitter is not aware of, I’m sure, but here’s a further anecdote.
I’ve been doodling around with a widget that rotates a number of what I think are interesting timely searches, mostly on Twitter search, but including some others.
Early last week the web was abuzz with rumors about a $99 iPhone offered by Wal-Mart, so I make it one of the widget’s searches. Each day there was more spam in the stream. I tried my best to filter it with minus switches, and finally had to give up.
I expect I’ll have to abandon the gas+price search soon for the same reason. I added another three switches today, but I have a feeling it’s just a matter of time before I won’t be able to manage it that way.
Craftier developers will know better ways to filter out certain users based on their tweet patterns and put them in 3rd party apps or in Twitter search itself. On the other hand, not putting the controls in Twitter’s public search might be a way to create value for a corporate product. But that would be scarcity thinking.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
I often feel like making something on holidays (you know, like something besides pies). It seemed like a good time to give my Obama countdown widget a new look.
Play it again, Big.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
A simplified version of the calculator is embeddable. I missed it when I wrote about it yesterday.
It’s made with Clearspring.
Monday, October 27, 2008
If you’re arguing with undecided voters about the socialism charge leveled by the McCain campaign against Barack Obama’s tax proposal, give them a little historical perspective and explain it’s a tiny tweak—not the huge deal McCain seeks to make of it.
Obama proposes to raise the top marginal rate to 39%—up from 35%. Note that the top rate hovered around the 90% mark all during the 1960s and stayed up in the 70% range throughout the 1970s.
The McCain campaign can try to make spreading the wealth into a mountain of an issue, but it’s not. It’s a small change. It won’t threaten the fabric of democracy.
Ask your disputants to enter their income into Obama’s tax calculator. See how they’ll be affected.
The Obama campaign should have made the calculator into an embeddable widget. I’ll take a look at it tonight and see if I can pluck it out.
My inauguration countdown widget continues to be a relative hit by my modest standards, getting 300,000 views so far this month. It seems like a very long time since I made it over the Christmas holidays last year. It has been fun to see it show up on other people’s blogs. Since the widget is available as a Google gadget, it’s been especially well patronized by Blogger bloggers.
Whatever will we talk about and think about when this is all over next week? Maybe some of us will stay involved and channel our interest into making things better and more just.
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