I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution. - Andrew Carnegie
yourminis widgets provide an integrated distribution mechanism. As shown in Figure 1, wherever your widget is deployed, a Copy Me button is displayed whenever a user mouses over the widget.
Figure 1 - An Example yourminis Widget.
If the user clicks on the Copy Me button, as I discussed last week, they have a number of locations they can choose to deploy their widget. This provides developers with multiple opportunities to expose their widgets to new audiences, without the need to understand all of the complexities of each platform. You can deploy your widgets to:
- AIM Profile Pages
- MySpace
- Hi5
- Friendster
- FreeWebs
- Piczo
- Netvibes
- Xanga
- Yourminis
- iGoogle
- Live.com
- Pageflakes
- Blogger
- Typepad
- Vista Sidebar
- Mac OS X Dashboard
- Yahoo Widgets
Publishing Your Widget
Once your widget is complete you can make the widget available from the yourminiss Dashboard. Go to the www.yourminiss.com site, and click the sign in link in the upper right. Use your yourminis username and password. Once you're logged in click on the dashboard link in the upper right corner. Click the Add New Widget link, and now you're ready to publish your widget in three easy steps:
- Give your widget a unique name, then click Next.
- Accept the terms of service after your review, then click Next.
- Provide information such as the title, description, etc. Upload your widget creation.
Now you're ready for syndication. Select one of the widgets you've uploaded, and click on the Syndication link. From here you can select the Galleries (including Live.com, Facebook, and iGoogle) where your widget will be available. From the Destination you can choose where you will allow users to Copy your widget.
Yourminis makes the process of distributing your widget very easy! Next week I'll discuss the comprehensive reporting features – where you can find out how and where your widget is being used!