Snipperoo Updater

Verify your subscription

When you fill out the signup form for Snipperoo, we send you a verification email. You need to link back to us from that email to verify your email address. That's all - but if you don't, you won't have an account.
If you haven't had the email, it's possible it's gone into your spam filter or you've overlooked it. Please dig it out and verify your account. Thanks.

Snipperoo T-shirts

Have you put a Panel on your site yet? We're rewarding every live Panel owner during December and January with a free Snipperoo 'Keep your hands off my Widgets' T-shirt.  In order to get yours, all you have to do is make a Panel, put it on your blog or some other site and drop us a line to ivan.pope+tshirt@gmail.com with your name, url of Panel and surface address. Shirt will be in the post. You'll also get a shout out in our blogs and on our site for your efforts.

The huge Widget Directory and how to use it

We have a huge widget directory and we've also part integrated it into the application. While there will be much much more integration over the next few months, I'd just like to explain how to use the directory now.
A lot of Snipperoo users anticipated a 'one click' method of adding widgets from the directory. When they find that it doesn't work like that, they get bored and move on.
Don't! The directory is a collection of every widget in the world (as close as we can get, anyway). There is no way we can arrange for every widget to be converted to a one-click widget as fast as they are created - and we don't want to impose any conditions on widget creators.
So, at the moment you have to find your own widgets and import them into your account. There's no mystery about this, it's how widgets have worked up to now.
So, look on the directory as a starting point to find exactly the right widget for your needs. Go to the site and configure the widget to your needs. Then import the code - and you have the perfect widget for your site.
We'll be working on the directory over the next few months to make it much more user friendly. We also have a bunch of tools to make widget importing more friendly and to help you harvest widgets. More on that in a moment.

Pass us on to bloggers

We'd like to meet a lot of bloggers. We know we are a great tool for anyone who is keen to add and refresh the interest level of their blog.
With a few thousand widgets to choose from and more options coming along all the time, widgets provide a great way for bloggers to add value to their sites.
Anything from AdSense or other ad networks through to Feedburner email subscription panels, jokes, weather, news feeds, tiny browsers, rss subscription buttons - everything comes as a widget.
With a Snipperoo account, adding and removing widgets just gets so much simpler. You can collect widgets when you find them and try them out easily. If you don't like them, just remove them from the panel.
So, we'd like to encourage you to pass us on to a blogger that you read. 
Next, I'm going to make some Snipperoo badges for you to put in your own blog.

Making a Widget

Our second demo is a Making a Widget demo. It shows how to make and use a Flickr widget - though the process is the same for any widget that requires cutting and pasting of code. Worth a look.

Watch our Getting Started demo

We realise that a new Snipperoo account seems just a little bare, that is, it doesn't contain anything and it isn't clear how to make those widgets sing.
To make the power of Snipperoo more obvious we decided to record some demos of us setting up various things.
The key demo is the 'getting started' demo which I recorded last night. It looks at a fresh Snipperoo account and shows how you need to add widgets, make a Panel and add the Panel codeline to your blog or website to make it work.
It's actually a simple process - but if it sounds complicated, watch the demo and try it for yourself. The key thing to remember is that you only have to add the codeline to your site once, and then you have the power and the pleasure of Snipperoo at your disposal for all your widgets.
You can watch the Getting Started demo here.

Typepad and Snipperoo

If you want an easy way to start using Snipperoo in a blog, you can now use the Typepad widget.  If you are already a Typepad user (and you don't use Advanced Templates!), you can easily add a Snipperoo Panel to any Typepad blog.
If you don't have a Typepad account, you can get a free thirty day trial and get right in there. We are fans of TypePad and use it for the Snipperoo blog.

When you go to edit a Panel in Snipperoo, you will see the option to 'add this to my site'.

Now, when you click this option, you will have an option to add it to My Typepad blog

If you choose this option, you will be taken into the Typepad interface where you can choose which blog to add the Snipperoo Panel to.
Once you've added the Snipperoo panel to your Typepad blog, you can add any widget you find around the internet or on our Widget Directory.

Editing widget code

Editing widget code
In addition to pasting existing widget code into your Modules, you can edit that code once its in there, or even create your own widgets from scratch.

• You can add a header or footer text to a widget
• You'll often find that widgets contain size information that you can edit to fit your site
• You can create your own headers and footers by typing in text and using basic html
• You can make your own images by pointing to anything on a web site

Our mission

Beta visitors to Snipperoo have tended to be struck by one thought: where on earth do I start. We appreciate that Snipperoo can appear a bit barren on first sight. We're working hard and fast on changing this so that you have a set of starter widgets and tighter integration with the Widget Directory. However, it is also part of our widget philosophy that we don't handhold you too much by giving you a simple bunch of widgets to choose from.
Why?
Because Snipperoo is designed to allow you to put anything you want in your site as a widget. Our aim is to make that easy for you while not cutting down on your options. If you want a widget, you have to go out and get it. And whether that is copying code from YouTube or signing up with AdSense and creating your own advertising banners, it's your choice.
These things will get simpler and more integrated over time, but we will never abandon our mission to allow any widget in the world to be put into Snipperoo.
So, for example, when Google release all their widgets for web use, we don't have to wait for them to be converted - they are available for use from day one.

Google Gadgets become Widgets

Did you know that Google has over a thousand 'gadgets' available. Now they have all been made available as code widgets that you can put on any page.

We are currently entering all of them into our Widget Directory. You can get the code for any one of them from the Google site and make a module for Snipperoo from it.

If you thought there weren't that many widgets available, take another look - these cover almost everything you could imagine. Some good, some bad, some ugly. But all of them widgets.