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 photo-mosaic of your book covers? You can find widgets and photo-mosaic information on the "Tools" tab in LibraryThing.
I love gadgets and widgets on blogs, especially the LibraryThing ones that show random books. It’s very cool to be browsing through the blog world and get a little taste of what a person likes in books. Another reason I like them is because I’m a cover junkie, I love seeing what different covers are out there.
But do I have a LibraryThing widget on my blog? No. I’m the type of person that re-arranges the furniture in my house so often that you never know what it’s gonna look like. This seems to have translated into my blogging world, because just last week I changed my blog design around again. While I enjoy having a fresh look, often my sidebar stuff gets forgotten – in this case I forgot to re-add my LibraryThing widget! 
© 2008-2010 Joanne Mosher of The Book Zombie. All rights reserved.
7 comments:
I have a LT Early Reviewers widget, but none of the other ones. I have a lot of other widgets, but I really wonder if anyone looks at them.
I don't mind the LT widgets (unless someone decides to display their entire library), but a lot of bloggers put too many of them and then the browser chokes loading the page. I removed my Ning badges when I realized they were Flash and might choke some visitors browsers.
I think if you're going to put a widget on your blog you need to first ask yourself what it does for the reader. Most book bloggers are reasonable but I've been to some blogs that are more widgets than content!
The thing I don't like about putting all my blogs in Google Reader is that I don't get to see when people do a new site design or something cool like that. I love the new look of your blog, very classy!
Kim
One thing I hate hate hate about Wordpress is that they won't let me have a Library Thing widget :( I don't know why...it's so sad. I wish they'd develop one!
I love the LT widget! And I can't tell you how many times I've picked up a book because of the cover!
Here's my Thinger!
Wendi
I found that widgets sometimes slow people's blogs down, so I tend to stay away from them. I do like the random book selection one, though! I'm too lazy to put all my books into LT, though. :P
I really like the "random books from your library" widget, though like Trish said I noticed it takes some time to load.
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