Matthew Gifford

2008 has been a slow year for this site. I’m going to use the upgrade to WordPress 2.7 as an opportunity to take things in a new direction. Expect big changes soon.

Shizzow is a location-based social networking site created by Portland web geeks that I have the pleasure of knowing. I love the service, but often don’t remember to update my location. I needed to find a way to remind myself to use it.

Since its recent redesign, I’ve been using iGoogle several times a day. It seemed like the perfect place to put Shizzow.

Because Shizzow doesn’t have an API yet, I couldn’t do much more than embedding the mobile interface in the widget. Once the API is out, I plan on redesigning the UI so it makes more sense in the context of a widget. I also plan on adding some of the full Shizzow site’s functionality to the widget’s canvas view.

If you don’t use iGoogle, you can also embed the widget on any web page.

Links for embedding the widget can be found on its page in the Google gadget gallery.

This is not an official Shizzow product. Problems, questions, and suggestions should be sent to me.

Obviously, I didn’t manage to post anything during Web 2.0 Expo. Connectivity problems outside the conference (and sometimes inside the conference), along with being in New York for the first time made blogging rather difficult. I’ll be posting my notes in the coming days.

Angela and I are in New York this week for Web 2.0 Expo. She’s not attending, of course. It was a good opportunity for her to see New York.

Unlike with past conferences I’ve attended, I’ll probably be posting my thoughts on the sessions in the evenings.

Update: The lack of power in the session rooms is very disappointing.