engadget — Blog — Ryan Spoon

Widgetbox has released the Blidget Pro product: the next generation of our successful Blidget tool. Also worth noting, it is our first subscription-based service ($3.99 / mo or $29.99 / year). The Blidget Pro is a far more powerful version of the Blidget - a tool that has converted nearly 100,000 blogs into widgets and served 2.3 billion impressions since its initial launch in 2007. It represents a major step forward – and the best way to give you a feel for its capabilities is with some samples (the full feature set is below). Please contact me if you are interested in learning more or how Widgetbox can help you and your company:

- Easily create viral, branded widgets without any code - Custom header, footer and/or body assets (jpg, gif, swf, png) - Tab integration for multiple feeds and formats - In-widget video integration for YouTube, Hulu and Vimeo (Hulu example) - New visual layouts (slideshow, brick-mode, headlines with images) - Custom widget linking (header, footer and/or body) - Premium promotion on Widgetbox.com -Widget analytics (installs, widget views, uniques)

Yesterday, I wrote about how Techmeme's Leaderboard is shifting dramatically and both the analysis and reader feedback suggested that the biggest risers on Techmeme have been gadget blogs - specifically Apple and mobile blogs.

Robert Scoble left a great comment:

"I think some of that is rubbing off on Techmeme, too, but really, it’s due to the lack of interesting stories. Honestly, tell me three stories that have come out in the past month that got you excited. iPhone? Yes. What else?"

Susan Mernit then chimed in:

"I’m still a techmeme fan, though I bemoan that 60% of it is device and product news that I can get elsewhere and don’t find as interesting as the more narrow world of structured and unstructured data, search, community, social media, and so on…Seeing people like Louis Gray hit the list is thrilling because my own interest is in going beyond breaking news to analysis and reflection and Louis does that so well."

So here's Techmeme's current homepage. I've shaded gadget articles in red and tech news in blue. Sure the timing (namely iPhone's recent launch) might tilt the results here, but Apple doesn't dominate the page. News from XBox, Blackberry, and Google fill up much of the homepage.

So is Techmeme, whose current tagline is "Tech Web, Page A1", becoming Techmeme: "Gadgets, Page A1"? Watch out Engadget!