FeedBurner feed count drop

You may have noticed on Saturday (3rd November) that you FeedBurner feed counter was reporting a much lower level of subscribers to your blog. Here at Newsniche the counter dropped by nearly a hundred subscribers.

FeedBurner blame Google for the glitch as the Google feedfetcher bot had gone out on Friday night and was up late Saturday. This was probably due to drinking too much GoogleJuice the night before, those bots can't hold their drink. As a result none of the Google Reader subscribers were reported in the stats for Saturday.

Google Feedfetcher drops ball

At the time like me you may have worried even panicked when you saw a massive drop in subscriber numbers. If you have more than one blog then you would have figured out the drop was across the board and due to some glitch.

These sorts of glitches although usually temporary can cause a webmaster a lot of unnecessary stress. These things happen, my advice is don't hit the panic button, do a little investigating then report it if needed. More often than not these things are temporary. I have learned by experience if you do too much tinkering thinking it's something you have done you end up making things worse. All you need to do now is explain to your advertisers why your stats dropped.

This post is from the Newsniche website and should not be reproduced elsewhere. Why not subscribe to the RSS feed and get this information delivered straight to your News reader.

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New Feature: Top Destination Services

New Feature: Top Destination Services
We have just added a new feature to AddThis, it’s a graph in your stats section that will show you where your users bookmark your pages (e.g. Del.icio.us, Digg, Google, etc), or subscribe to your feeds (e.g. Bloglines, Google Reader, etc). Many of you have asked for this feature, so we went ahead and added [...]

We have just added a new feature to AddThis, it’s a graph in your stats section that will show you where your users bookmark your pages (e.g. Del.icio.us, Digg, Google, etc), or subscribe to your feeds (e.g. Bloglines, Google Reader, etc). Many of you have asked for this feature, so we went ahead and added it. Here is an example of what it looks like.

Now, to make sure you don’t all jump into your account and check this new feature at the same time and bring our servers down, we are using an invitation-only model. To use the feature you will first need to unlock it (the first time only). The code to unlock the feature is : addthis-stats

So go ahead and unlock that feature. If you like it, feel free to invite your visitors by posting the access code on your website or blog, so they can also benefit from those cool stats.

Related to this feature, we have also added a new section on the AddThis website: AddThis Trends. This section shows the exact same statistics descibed above, but aggregated over all the AddThis accounts. We also included a very interesting graph that shows the popularity evolution for the top bookmarking services month-by-month (see below).

Social bookmarking is evolving very fast. The graph shows that Favorites is falling in popularity while social bookmarking services continue to grow. Favorites here means local bookmarking (for any browser). Another interesting thing we are noticing is that the smaller bookmarking services together represent a very large portion of the market. So only including Digg and Del.icio.us badges is no longer enough.

TrueType Changer 1.0.2.0 (Freeware)

Allows changing the TrueType (also sometimes called file signature) Read More

The best way to get your band's blog on Myspace.

While I was looking through the widget analytics data the other day, I noticed just how many bands are using our RSS reader to deliver news to their fans into social networks like Myspace and Facebook and start pages like iGoogle, Netvibes and Pageflakes.

Get this widget!

Grab this Led Zeppelin widget now.

Of course, I'm going to show my age here, but I had to ask who Timbaland, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Rich Boy were, and I had no clue about The Wreckers, Robin Thicke or Faith Hill but when I found out that the official Beastie Boys, Led Zeppelin and Michael Jackson's Thriller profiles were using our widgets I had to spread the word.

Admittedly, Timbaland may get a bit more play these days, but I spent so much time listening to my Zeppelin albums and tapes that I wore them out. And the Beastie boys Licensed to Ill was awesome and played non-stop while cruising in my 66 Mustang in the 80's. (I really am old)

If you have a band, take a look at how some of the other artists I mentioned above implemented the widgets on their Myspace pages and feel free to use our widgets or our platform to promote your own news or events to your fans.

We don't charge for bands to use our RSS reaader, so it's probably the lowest cost investment that you'll make in your popularity. If you are feeling generous, we'll take concert tickets, CD's and backstage passes if you have any to spare ;-)

Get this widget!

If you are a band and add a SpringWidgets express RSS reader to your page to promote your website or blog, please add a comment below and let us know where to find it.

Rock on and build your own RSS express widget today. Read More

GAMES, GAMES, GAMES!!!!!

We love the cool games we played when we were kids, so we found them and put those games in our widget platform (Thank You, Neave!!!!).

http://springwidget.com/widgets/byCategory/12

Check them out - they are in the "Fun and Games" category of the Widget Gallery.

We have the following:
Asteroids
Tic-Tac-Toe
Simon
Hexxagon
Snake
Space Invaders

They are pretty addictive - I spend more time than I'd like to admit tie-ing the computer in Tic-Tac-Toe - but I figured out the one move that always wins - hehe.

Have fun and let us know what you think!

Get this widget!

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Redefining the Widget

Last year at Widgets Live, the announcement of the SpringWidgets platform redefined what a widget could be. At the time of our launch there were three categories of widgets: desktop widgets, web widgets and a special subsection of web widgets that would work on social networking profiles.

We changed all that by inventing a widget platform that allowed for the first time, the ability to use a single, updatable and configurable widget file to reach all of these destinations. We took it further by incorporating in the ability to “pop” any SpringWidget you find on the web onto your desktop with just one click.

Since our release, there have been a few companies that have announced a similar product offering - YourMinis and Netvibes are examples we feel are well done.

I'm going to give you a little sneak peak behind the curtain where we are quietly working on redefining the widget once again, and perhaps in the process spur another round of inspiration.

For the most part, online widgets have been exactly what the limited definition has made them out to be …

A web widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation.

Thanks Wikipedia

Reading this, I’m thinking about the widget landscape and in my head I’m starting to challenge the entire box that we have collectively put widgets into, trying to look past the simple definition and look at the transformative nature of what a portable chunk of code can do.

Is the widget just a visitor on the web page or can it be much more and control and interact with the web page it’s on? If widgets are like parasites, can a parasite define the host?

Can a widget be a portable “experience?”

Envision if you will a Widget that no longer sends the user off to another site to personalize itself. Imagine a widget that is not content to stay within the confines of it’s own little box, but rather can interact with the page it lives on. The “Transformative Widget” would take over the page it’s on; integrating it's content within that page and transforming it based on a click.

If the Widget is not just a chunk of code, but rather a portable experience, imagine the infinite ways we can expand the brand experience within the social network itself. Moving code and embedding Widgets can create a better way to immerse the user in an extreme brand experience. The widget then becomes an ad that is user embedded, user selected and more powerfully engaging and interactive than any traditional advertisement that is available - and just as performance oriented.

If a user allows the widget to brand the entire page, is that a "Widgetview", an "Ad Impression", or a "Pageview"?

So if SpringWidgets is ready to challenge the Widget Landscape it’s safe to say that the launch of THE FANTASTIC FOUR Widget is the next step in redefining the Widget. The transformative nature of TFF Widget is completely apparent once you start using it on your MySpace profile and the brand experience is more immersive than anything possible with a widget prior to the Fantastic Four widget launch.

This is only one of the many transformative widgets that we are engaged in and only represents a small amount of our R&D efforts. Over the weeks and months to come, we'll be rolling out some truly fantastic products that will not only transform the widget, but transform SpringWidgets as well.

We would love to have you on board as we make these transformations, so please feel free to download our API and put your own thoughts to work in redefining what a widget can be. Read More

Apple iPhone SDK Roundup: Everything You Need to Know [Roundup]

Apple iPhone SDK Roundup: Everything You Need to Know [Roundup]
El Jobso wrapped up the iPhone SDK roundup, and it was a doozy. In case you didn't catch all of the announcements from our liveblog, we'll get you up to speed. • Apple Reveals iPhone...

Calendar Countdown 1.3

Calendar Countdown 1.3
Countdown widget which shows the upcoming events from any Google Calendar.

About Calendar Countdown Shows the upcoming events from any Google Calendar. Any public and private calendar can be the source for this counter. It advances automatically to the next event after each alert. Zero numbers become orange for better alert that the counter runs up.

Mobile Light is Solar Powered, Won't Increase Your Sex Appeal [Design]

The Kyouei Design house has come up with the fantastically titled, Mobile Light, which incorporates a small solar panel bed at one end and a light at the other. Activation is automatically instigated... Read More