As Dell was kind enough to list me in the Virtualization Connect Widget I figured it would be fair to share this with all of you. One thing I want to point out is that I am currently not using the plugin myself as it didn’t fit my layout. I do believe this is a really cool initiative and if I re-do my layout I will try to make room for it.
Chasing Virtualization News Has Never Been Easier
By: Matthew Smith
Every day there are 7,330 blog posts written about the topic of virtualization. If your schedule is anything like mine you won’t be able to even read 1% of those blog posts. Think of all the important information you might miss out on? In answer to this problem the Dell virtualization team has been working hard to help make your life easier.
Introducing the Virtualization Connect Widget. The first widget to bring the latest virtualization news directly to your website. The virtualization connect widget is a WordPress plugin that can be installed on any WordPress blog (other platforms coming soon). The widget is a content aggregator that pulls summary descriptions and titles from the top virtualization bloggers in the industry (including Yellow-Bricks.com).
Here’s How the Widget Works
- The widget has a special crawler that goes to a pre-set list of virtualization bloggers that were selected based on quality, knowledge, and freshness of content.
- The crawler then takes a brief summary and title of the latest article and brings it back to the website that installed the widget.
- Articles within the widget are then stack ranked based on the total amount of social shares it received. For example if Duncan’s article received 50 tweets and someone else’s article within the widget received 25 tweets, Duncan’s article would outrank the other. This helps the installer of the widget to see the top stories within virtualization news.
Customization of the Widget
- Each widget is fully customizable to each installer’s individual needs. Within the widget settings you can actually select which virtualization thought leaders you want to follow.
- You can also add your own blogs and RSS feeds you would like to follow. Think of the widget as a super charged blogroll.
We are always looking to add additional thought leaders to the widget. If you think your blog has the right stuff then leave a comment or visit this page and submit your blog on the left side of the page.
Matt Smith says
It is starting to look like we will need to add a vmware category within the widget. If you think your blog should be included in either the vmware or virtualization category please leave a comment.
We will roll out the vmware category update this week!
Clint says
Cool! It’s like an RSS reader that ranks based on popularity.
Casey Adams says
Can any suggest a way to use this without WordPress? This sounds ideal for VMware blog junkies, but it is kinda useless to me without a WP site.
Matt Smith says
Casey,
We are currently working on a Javascript version of the widget that would not require WordPress. We are hoping to have it complete within the next month. You could then install and customize the widget for any platform.
Casey Adams says
Javascript? Do I hear foreshadowing of an awesome Android App on the way? 🙂 Also, what is the chances of this eventually becoming an opensource crawler? If the engine works as mentioned before, the applications for such a tool become endless. I could point it at a RSS feed for the VMware Support Forums and see what issues are getting the most responses/traffic for the day. I could see this becoming an awesome first source for trouble shooting issues that (dare I say it?) Google has not yet indexed.
I think I may have went too far 😀
Looking forward to the road that lies ahead for this tool.
– Casey
Matt Smith says
We aren’t looking at open-sourcing it just yet, but you never know! Also, it doesn’t measure traffic to articles, it ranks on social activity (facebook, twitter, etc), so it might not apply to your support forums RSS feed unless there is a lot of social sharing going on there.
Although I think the traffic part should be something we investigate possibly adding. If you want to be the first to know about the Javascript launch send an email to blogwidgetsupport at dell dot com (paranoid of scrapers).
Andi Lesslhumer says
This would be a great tool, but it is a pitty that the plug-in is using the “file_get_contents” command…
Most hoster have disabled this because of security issues… mine too 🙁
Regard,
Andi
Matt Smith says
Andi – You bring up a great point. I am getting with my programmer right now so we can get that fixed. We will be updating it to a CURL. Would that work with your hoster?