As I transition from AS2 to AS3, I find that sometimes what used to be accomplished in few steps now takes more. One of these is the old AS2 LoadVars object. It was pretty straight forward, but now it requires multiple classes and methods to make work. This is not necessarily a bad thing, AS3 is, in my opinion, leaps and bounds ahead of AS2, but that doesn’t mean we can’t all work together to make things easier for ourselves.

So, in that vain, I offer up my first ever AS3 Class - the VariableLoader (zip). It takes all the new steps and packages them in something that feels a little more like the old method. Included in the .zip file are the class, the package directory structure, and an example usage file. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me at dave [at] step7design.com

I can’t guarantee that this is the best, most fool-proof, amazing AS3 class ever coded in the history of the Internet. But I can tell you that for my own AS3 development it has made things a little easier.

There is a lot going on in the widget world, especially ours. We are increasingly busy with projects and client work. I am constantly amazed that something I considered a hobby would turn in to a little self-sustaining business.

WidgetNest is not a widget provider or a distribution service. We let other people tackle that problem. Instead, we create the widgets themselves and it has been incredibly rewarding. In fact, today I was checking out a new podcast over at CNET called The 404. I was amazed to see a little friend of mine - a multimedia player I helped make a while back for Castfire, “an enterprise class platform for podcasting and videocasting.” I spent a lot of time on that player, and it is fun to see it around the internet.

I would like to congratulate MixerCast for their new series of funding. I do not know anyone on the team over there, but I do like their work. Anyway, as I said, there is a lot going on in the widget world.

Keep your eyes open, we have a lot going on.

I, like many people, don’t really love Internet advertising. At least not the annoying, ugly kind. There are, however, a few internet ads that are fun, informative, and useful. There are not enough of these ads. That is why we have updated the services page to include a new service - Interactive Advertising. From today forward, if you are in need of an interactive ad, please consider us as your ad developer.

This may come to a surprise to some people, but we already have experience in this field. Before WidgetNest, at least as it is known today, I had the opportunity to work with a couple different people on a unique Internet advertising campaign. The ads integrated data from the site’s RSS feed. Because the site’s major draw was its content, there was no better way to advertise the site than by using the content itself. In essence, the site did its own advertising. Those interested in the stories and articles were drawn to the site. With every site update, the ad updated itself to correspond.

There is a lot that can be done with Interactive advertising, and it can be done is a well designed, tasteful, and useful manner. No dancing people, not bouncing monkeys, just pure genius.

Details Revealed: Google OpenSocial To Launch Thursday

Interesting story about Google’s ventures in to the web platform space. While not what I was imagining originally, this does seem to fit in better with Google’s main goals. It will be interesting to see how this effects the widget space.

As an aside, this year really has turned out to be the year of the widget, with all these web companies providing ways to integrate what are essentially widgets in to their platforms. Widgets really are a compelling application development arena. I know I sure like it.

Widget Hosting

We now offer widget hosting. We have had several requests for this from people that did not have their own hosting options. Until now we have not been able to fulfill their requests. We are glad to announce that now we can offer widget hosting, powered by our host - 1&1

Branded Pages

Another service we are please to announce is Branded Pages. Now along with building custom widgets we can also make custom distribution platforms that allow users to embed the widget on to their website. The benefits of this are that we can keep the code up to date and that the page will still reflect our clients page design and branding.

Widget Management

Finally, we are now offering widget management. Say you wanted a widget that could display quotes or some other content that needs to be updated regularly. Now we can provide our clients with administrative accounts for their widgets, enabling them to keep their content up to date without having to worry about maintain the back end. Because we also make the widgets, we can be sure to streamline the entire experience.

Its taken way to long but finally our services page has been update. Take a look!

This might sound weird coming from a widget developer but maybe there are too many widgets.

Now, let me qualify that statement by saying that maybe there are too many widgets that don’t actually serve a purpose. Even within our own collection of widgets we have those that are useful and those that are just plain silly. Stephen Ralph says:

“As an online marketer I’m constantly scouring the NET looking for the latest and greatest technologies, widgets, etc. to optimize my websites and blogs with…but in the long run do widgets like MyBlogLog, BlogRush, etc. really offer any value to YOU and YOUR online marketing efforts? ”

(via stephenralph.com - Widget Free Blogging)

And I am inclined to agree, even popular widgets, like those from MyBlogLog which claim to offer the blogger a service (being able to see who has visited your website), but are, in the end, nothing more than ads that do not benefit the blogger.

That said, there is a place for silly, pointless widgets. Take a look on MySpace or Facebook and you will see tons of picture slide shows, weird quote things and I Can Has Cheezburger. Why do people use these widgets? Because they help express their identity, or at least show others what they are interested in. So really it comes down to what you are trying to accomplish and who your target audience is - which, if I remember correctly, is straight out of the textbook for Marketing 101.

Still, I think there is a case to be made for raising the bar on portable, widget-like content. Now that we, as an internet community, are starting to get the hang of what widgets are and what they can do it is time to take them to a higher level. We’ve played, we’ve had our fun. Now its time to make something creative, usable, and useful.

Only 13 more days until Widget Summit. We aren’t going because we are busy, but it sounds like it will be a good event. Anyone thinking seriously about developing in the widget space should consider attending this conference.

Muse Storm is a new widget content and syndication platform. Its kind of neat. I guess. But it looks like that, among other things, their widgets are just our RSS Scroller but with more customization options. Granted they also provide you with analytics and other widget form factors like desktop widgets, but still - not offering a whole lot more that what is already available.

I think they are trying to appeal to the content producer, saying “use our system to provide your audience widgets.” That is a great idea, however, I feel that people that really want a custom widget for their site -branded, custom features, etc. - won’t be satisfied with just a cookie-cutter widget that will look and function like all the rest.

But, I do not actually know what they are trying to do, so there you go. We try not to take ourselves too seriously here at WidgetNest.

(As an aside, I am sure we are not the first people to think up the “+ Add this widget” phraseology but since we have started doing that on our own widgets I have seen a lot more that look exactly like ours. I am probably just being vain.)

Team WidgetNest is happy to annouce that we have chosen Widgetbox as our exclusive distribution partner. Using the Widgetbox system will help us to focus on widget development and not have to worry about integrating in to different platforms. Our widgets will be available anywhere Widgetbox widgets can go, which is a lot of places. In light of this partnership, we have updated our site to reflect the change. Now each widget page provides a link to the proper page on Widgetbox where a user can get their widget.

We are looking forward to working with Widgetbox and we are excited by this unique opportunity.