My name’s John Biesnecker, and I’m a new addition here at Praxis HQ. I’m helping Eileen with customer support, and dipping my toes in a variety of projects that touch on many areas of the ChineseSpanishPodSense operations.
Today, like a humble apprentice going to the elder monks for guidance, I have a question for the Big Brain: what kind of lesson widget would you add to your blog?
When we launched V3, we created a flash widget that you could add to any webpage (i.e., an entry in your blog) through which visitors could play the lesson, read that lesson’s discussion posts, and quickly access the review tools for that lesson. You can see an example of the widget here. The problem is that, to be perfectly honest, it’s never caught on.
We figure this is for one of two reasons – either nobody knows about it (the “Add to your blog/site” link isn’t very prominent, on each lesson’s sidebar near the bottom) or nobody likes it. Hopefully this post will go a long way in eliminating the first, but for the second we need your help!
If you run a blog, forum, or other site, what sort of widget would you be willing to put on your site? As a user, what sort of features would you like to have in a Flash lesson widget? What can we do to help you help us spread the word about CPod and SpanishSense?
- John B
中文 Chinese
Brendan (Peeling Mandarin) Says:
July 4th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Hi John,
I think the new widget is just fine the way it is. What you might like to consider is a widget that is not lesson specific. A general widget that, for example, shows the top contents of CP’s News section, or the latest released lessons. That way, bloggers like me would put it on the sidebar of our blogs instead of inserting it into blog entries (where it disappears under layers of new entries).
Jeremy Uriz Says:
July 4th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Brendan, you beat me to the punch. I was thinking the same thing. Specifically a widget that would function like the Lesson search feature on ChinesePod. In all honestly I had no idea this widget existed so now that I know… I might use it.
hanyu_xuesheng Says:
July 4th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
John, thanks for asking.
You asked: what sort of widget would you be willing to put on your site?
well, a small one without any ads, fast loading, and just the player functionality.
In my blog I am using the small player at http://www.google.com/reader/u.....player.swf instaed of your big one with 95% CP advertisement.
Derek Anderson Says:
July 5th, 2007 at 2:17 am
I agree with Brendan as well. If your widget allowed people to choose certain phrases for translation it might become more popular. I also think there needs to be an element of fun activity or some sort of benefit to the blog writer. Such as a game or a printed quote with the Chinese translation. There are unlimited possibilities with widgets.
Helena Says:
July 5th, 2007 at 4:58 am
yeah i like the idea of a quote or short sentence in chinese, maybe with a link to the relevant lesson. i might put that on my bebo. =] it could have the lesson graphic too, now they’ve become so fancy.
James Theron Says:
July 5th, 2007 at 5:38 am
There was a similar feature back in the V2 days. I recall it just being a player. For a while I used it on a site where I posted remixes of the podcasts. At some point I stopped using it. Sometimes it didn’t work and a simple link back to the lesson was enough.
I never took the time until now to see the V3 version. That’s a lot of real estate.
There are many places to write about cpod lessons. Lesson comments, Praxis blog, forum, Connect/Conversations, etc. Perhaps some people also have blogs where they blog specifically about CPod lessons. Absent this, I’m not sure I’d know what to do with such a lesson widget.
As an example, I like the zhongwen.com widget. Something small and to the point would work.
Daxiong Says:
July 5th, 2007 at 8:46 am
I honestly liked the old flash lesson player of V2. I have the V3 widget on my blog, but IMHO, it’ just too darn big. It’s really hard to work it into a design.
AuntySue Says:
July 5th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Yeah, if I went to read a blog and saw that thing, I’d believe the writer was being paid a mint to advertise, and would be skeptical of anything positive they wrote.
Moloch Says:
July 6th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Yeah, the size of the widget is absolutely friggin’ hilarious. I can definitely see why it wouldn’t catch on.
Joachim Says:
July 7th, 2007 at 4:58 am
I do agree with those indicating that the size of the widget is way too big.
At blogs.chinesepod.com/de we use a smaller format like the one on Chinesepod proper. The big widget doesn’t fit in.
leviathan Says:
July 8th, 2007 at 9:50 am
i like the player, but it’s too big!
And as a self promotion you wont need adverts in it, because the lessons do that, and people ignore anything that has the look of an advert.
width=”200″ height=”340″
Have a Public feed player.
I like what rich has done with the player i suggested
http://chinesepod.com/connecti.....ChinesePod Daily Podcast on our own website or blog
leviathan Says:
July 8th, 2007 at 9:57 am
对不起 wrong url
Chinesepod connect
John B Says:
July 11th, 2007 at 9:34 am
Thanks for all the feedback. We’re incorporating it all into our design process for a new widget. You guys rule!