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I am working on a screencast about nonprofit blogs and widgets. If you don't know what a widget is, here's an overview. I experimented with two widgets, linking them to content and conversation. I tried one for audience polls and one for messages. I put them into posts, not the sidebar. I asked people to participate via my blog and I also IM/emailed a few folks. People responded, including a few I didn't ping!
Using widgets is not yet a common practice on nonprofit blogs. Folks are experimenting with them because they are fun! However, the real outcomes or results are not yet clear. Maybe it will become clearer with more fundraising widgets. However, 85% of the really small sample of folks (10 people) who took the poll think that widgets could be useful to building community if used strategically.
I created a podcast from the messages with some minimal editing. What's cool is that I have s from nptech field from US, UK, Austraila, and Holland! The whole podcast is about 2-3 minutes and I will use that as a soundtrack for Act 2 in the screencast. When you see it with the visuals, you'll be amazed!! Hmm .. some of these widgets can help you create content for the blog ... but ha ha ha - that takes even longer than passively listening to it!
Here's the grand synthesis from feedback given my readers.
Some of the benefits noted:
-Easy to use, don't need technical skills
-Can be used to help you extend the conversation or interactivity on your blog,
if used strategically
-Can help you "listen" by gathering feedback and other information
from your blog readers
-Can help you easily link to other sites, content, or individuals or republish
your feeds
-Can help make your blog more "findable"
-They are lots of fun
Before you go hog wild on widgetbox and install every widget known to mankind, consider the following:
-If most of your readers are following you via blog RSS readers, they may not
"pop" out of their reader to visit your blog via a browser if you
widget is used in sidebar.
-On the other hand, a number of blogs may be more findable via search engine
searches, so some blogs are being discovered via the browser. This means that widgets and content should be designed to attract
first-timers and try to leverage them as blog readers/subscribers (if they read blogs).
-Consider your audience’s limitations in terms of technology and time when you
select a particular widget. If your audience is
likely to a microphone installed on their computer, than those message
widgets might make sense.
-The use of widget must be linked to the topic, content, or purpose of your
blog. Having widgets passively site on your sidebar may mean they aren't used.
Here's what surprised me and made me curious. If you take the two minutes to listen to the compilation of messages I received from my blog readers about their thoughts on widgets, you will hear Ashley's response at the end. Ashley is one of my readers, but I don't know her and we have never communicated. In a follow up email, I asked her if she read me via a blog reader and did actually click through to my site via her browser. Her response:
"I was reading you in the reader but I saw the odeo message widget post and clicked through. I'm a visual learner, so I like to read blogs outside of my reader."
Know Your Audience
Click here for the larger size
So, this made go into my blog stats and take a look at how and where my blog readers came through. The pink slice are the folks that pop through the bloglines reader and visit my site.
The transcript of quotes (because search engines don't yet search podcasts and I'd like give my colleagues a little link love!)
Michelle Martin, Bamboo Project
“The reason I like widgets is – they are fun, easy to use, encourage different kinds of activity with the content on your site.”
“Widgets are good and bad. The thing that strikes me the most is that we’re telling folks that readers have to come to the blog to use these things.”
“I’m not clear what the benefits are to widgets. There are fun and cool tools, but I don’t think anyone actually uses them.”
“It is amazing what is possible with widgets. I like to try them. However, listening and watching takes a lot of time. In the end, many don’t want to take the extra time to listen.”
Lloyd Davis
Perfect Path Blog
"I like to play with widgets, but not sure how many of my readers actually visit my blog because they are reading via RSS. I may be wrong. Of course, they have to visit my blog page via browser to subscribe. However, when someone does come and leaves a message it is great."
Ashley Cecil
“I was reading your blog and thinking I should send you an email and tell you how much I enjoy reading your blog. Then I came across the post with the link to the Odeo message and decided to leave you a mail. I love it. I might use this on my own blog. Keep up the good work blogging.”
Updates from Message Widget that arrived after I mixed the one above! Click through to hear or read their comments.
From Torley Linden of Linden Lab
From Christine Heron of Omidyar Net
Music Credit: Wonder Drums by Porchcat and Mystro Soul Instrumental
If you pop through the browser to my site and look at my side bar, you'll see I've set up a few more widget experiments, including the tip jar.
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