AdaptiveBlue In Action – SmartLink Feeds


How Do I Share Thee? Dozens Of Ways!

One cold November night, while looking for an alternate way to display my links, I found AdaptiveBlue’s site on the net. One look at the BlueOrganizer Badge widget was all it took for me to see its value. Not only was I able to display my links in a new and interesting way, but I could also provide some relevant information and options to my readers who chose to use them. (Plus, there are times when I am just a sucker for a pretty face (3am) and you have to admit, my badges are cute. You’ll see them in a minute, as I work them into this story below.)

AdaptiveBlue’s SmartLink Widgets create an RSS feed made up of the links you choose. There are 3 basic ways of using them. You can set up a personalized feed based on things which are distinctive to you, such as your Amazon wish list, or your Last.fm or Netflix histories. Or you could set up an automatic list, containing things like iTunes Top Albums or NY Times Bestsellers. Or you could do what I did here at Wordout and set up a custom widget with only the specific things you want in it.

You also get your choice of 3 ways to display them. Examples of all three are shown below. Different styles have different options, and different items within the styles change some of the options that are available. Regardless of which way you use them, and regardless of which style you choose, AdaptiveBlue’s SmartLinks widgets are the best way I know to display and share your favorite things with friends, family and the Whole Wide World.

List Widgets

The List style allows you to show a brief description of the item, if a description is available. The only drawback to this type of list is the amount of room it takes on the page, but if you’ve got the room, and you want to show as much as you can, these are a great choice.

The List and Grid widgets used here are generic feeds I found at the AdaptiveBlue site. Everything about these widgets is customizable, allowing you to make the widget personally yours.

Notice that the list feed on the right does not display descriptions. But it also takes up far less room on the page. These are great for themes with narrow sidebars.

The widgets you see on this page are all live. Click on the little blue SmartLink launcher next to any of the titles to launch the SmartLink and see the description of the item. You’ll also find relevant links to just about anything you can think to do with them. Go ahead and play around with any of them. See for yourself.

Grid and Badge Widgets

The Grid Widget, shown left, is great when there’s alot of items you want to show.

Once again, I recommend clicking on a few of these if they interest you. For instance, I just found out that I can hear Bowie any time on Rhapsody, for free. I happen to like Bowie, so that’s a good thing to know.

Over to the right, you’ll see the Badge style widgets that I chose to use here at Wordout. As you can see, everything is customized with my own choices. I think they’re beautiful. And they’re all mine.


What’s Mine Is Yours

Yes, they’re all mine. And they could be all yours, too. Any of the dozens of SmartLinks widgets can be grabbed with a click. If you like my “Wordout Favorites” enough to want them, take them! And every time I change them, you will see it. It works the same with any of the SmartLinks feeds. If you see one you like, just grab it and go. After all, isn’t that the point of sharing? So take it from me! Or better yet, go make one of your own and give it away!

There are literally dozens of widgets available on the AdaptiveBlue site. Choose from widgets based on lists from Amazon, iTunes, Epicurious, Yahoo!, Rolling Stone, Wallstrip, and many more. Each of them are completely adaptive to your needs, just like the ones I’ve shown you here. And, if you’re a member of Amazon, eBay or LinkShare Affiliates, just enter your id to make yourself some cash. For more information on setting them up, watch this video from AdaptiveBlue.

Here Now

Looking back over the past week, we’ve just barely scratched the surface of AdaptiveBlue, SmartLinks and BlueOrganizer. We’ve met the team, heard some of what they have to say, played around a bit with their stuff and maybe gotten a glimpse of what the future holds for smarter browsing. We’ve seen just a bit past the screens and touched a few things. Every day the team is out there, working to make the web open up to us in ways we’ve only seen in Sci-Fi. But it isn’t Sci-Fi. It’s something much better.

It’s the future, and it’s here, now, making itself right before our eyes. All we have to do is look.

I’ll be touching more on AdaptiveBlue and the semantic technologies that enable smarter browsing in future articles at Wordout. It’s probably a good idea to hit the FeedMe! button below or the RSS icon and subscribe to the feed. Or maybe you want Wordout sent straight to your email. I know you don’t want to miss a thing.

And while you’re at it, doing everything I say, post a comment on what you thought about the series this week. It’s the first time I’ve done a weeklong theme, and I’d really like to know what you thought, about AdaptiveBlue, SmartLinks, BlueOrganizer and the feeds, the Semantic Web, things behind screens and just anything else that’s on your mind.

I am Jon and my eyes and ears are wide open.

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