Profile Bling

You can now add html / flash widgets to your profile pages, in each of the major fields except for the "About Me" field.

So what does this mean? It means you can add bling. Games, photos, audio, video, chat, voicemail, and it doesn't stop there.

You can add shopping carts that let you sell stuff from your profile page. There's even a company that has a tool that allows someone to call you via your profile page, and they will bill the caller for the privilege of talking to you (this is good for subject matter experts or consultants)

Literally thousands of companies are investing in things called "widgets" right now - little snippets of code that you can copy and paste into other sites to customize your pages.

You can even add a Weblist to your profile page, if you are so inclined.

I wouldn't mess around with this too much yet - we're still working through some kinks. But by the end of the weekend, you should be able to add just about any widget that isn't a script to your profile page, giving you all kinds of flexibility in customizing your page.

I think this is an amazing development. I know that many of us RateItAll regulars spend a tremendous amount of time on the site. Shouldn't we be able to personalize our profile pages a bit?

So how can you find all the cool stuff that's out there to plug into your profile pages? Here are two resources for you.

1) RateItAll has a widget directory. This will be a great resource to get an idea of what's out there, and to share experiences about what works and what doesn't work.

2) I've lauched a blog called Sexy Widget in which I test and review the various widgets.

Check out Magellan's page for a small glimpse of the kind of things that will be possible.

Much more on this to follow... it's easy and fun to mix these web services on your page. And for those who need help getting started, I'm here to help.

If you can't wait to try it out, here's an easy thing to do - go to YouTube.

Find a video that you like, and copy the line of code from the line that says "Embed." Paste it into your profile page in the field that says "movies." Presto, your using widgets.