Monday, November 24, 2008

Tuesday Thingers: Blog Widgets




This week, Marie at Boston Bibliophile has this question for the Tuesday Thingers group:
Today's question- Blog Widgets. Do you use them? Do you have them on your blog? Do you know what I'm talking about?:-) A blog widget is that list of books "From my LibraryThing" and such, that you'll sometimes see on someone's sidebar. If you use it, do all of your books show up or do you have it set to only show certain books? Do you have a search widget, which would allow your blog readers to search your library? Have you ever made a photomosaic of your book covers? You can find widgets and photomosaic information on the "Tools" tab in LibraryThing.
I guess I should start by confessing that I suffer from severe techno retardation. Just the terms "search widget" and "photomosaic" are enough to make me start pacing the floor, and sputtering gibberish. And, in addition, I really don't like a lot of clutter on my blog.

So, no I don't have many widgets (actually, I usually refer to them as "thingies"). Not here on my main blog, anyway.

The only LibraryThing widget I've got in my sidebar is just a link to my LT profile page. I used to have an Early Reviewers widget, too, but I took that off because Blogger said my page might load faster if I stripped off as much html as possible. Or something like that (see what I mean about my techno problem?).

All my other thingies widgets are Blogger widgets – a blog archive, and lists of my other blogs, and favorite links and such. And I've put up the little "followers" widget. I figure if there's someone out there nice enough to follow my blog, I should at least give them a mention.

I'm not totally opposed to widgets – in fact, I wouldn't mind putting a photomosaic of some of my book covers up. But that would involve spending the time to figure out how to do it. And I'd probably just end up getting frustrated and pacing the floor, and sputtering gibberish again.

14 comments:

  1. Like you, I've mostly kept with the Blogger widgets, although I do have the random books from LT on my sidebar.

    :) Wendi

    Here's my Thinger!

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  2. I'm not really technically minded but I do like my widgets. I think of them as "those what's its". I don't think I really have the patience or time to make a photomosaic.

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  3. I'm like you on the photomosic. I'm still not sure I understand exactly what that is and what your supposed to do with it.

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  4. I have quite a few widgets on my blog, and I really don't think anyone looks at them.

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  5. Great post. I'm a bit more technically inclined but still intimidated by the photomosaic!

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  6. You know that I'm a widget user. I don't use LT though; I prefer Shelfari shelves and have them at the bottom of my blogs.

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  7. I love widgets - but I don't want to overwhelm my blog. So I have to choose them wisely.

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  8. Widgets are fun but can be frustrating too and sometimes they bug me on my own blog because they look cluttered. I guess I am a waffler.

    Amy

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  9. Widgets are fun as long as there aren't too many. I'm not much for clutter either.

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  10. I need to declutter my thingies. Although some of them get a lot of clicks, they're making my page load slower, which is a pain. The changeover will have to wait, though, since I'm about to get going on my Christmas forest. I put up 12 Christmas trees in the house--eight of them in the living room.

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  11. I switched from Blogger to Wordpress two years ago. Here at Wordpress we have so many widgets to choose from but I don't even know most of them! I keep mine simple.

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  12. yes, i am afraid my blog is cluttered with thingies.

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  13. Haha - You're funny. I'm pretty techno-challenged myself but the little widgets I found were pretty simple so I can't complaint there.

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  14. I've never tried the photomosaic either, but I do enjoy the random cover widget. I didn't know it made pages load slower. I have a couple of other widgets I may get rid of then.

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