Orange opens up its widgets platform - Rethink Wireless

In keeping with its work on common mobile software platforms, Orange has made its Open Source Mobile Widget Platform available to the industry. The platform was developed by Orange Labs and enables web-based apps to be developed for all kinds of phones, from high end smartphones to featurephones.

The system, accessible soon at http://github.com/osmwp, consists of a widget reader, already integrated into 80% of Orange handsets; server technology to manage a catalog of widgets; and tools to create those widgets.

Orange widgets are particularly suited to basic handsets, looking to extend the mobile apps experience to low end devices especially in the cellco's increasingly important emerging markets in regions like Africa. In March, Orange partnered with Netvibes, promising to "democratize" the mobile software platform. It added Netvibes' catalog of nearly 200,000 apps to Orange Widgets and to the French cellco's djingo platform, which is one of the less recognized, but more innovative, parts of the firm's complex web strategy.

Djingo is accessible from compatible phones that run on other carriers' networks, and is a small step towards the days when Orange will have to adapt to open access, as well as an attempt to generate brand and revenues as a multiplatform web software vendor, not just a network owner. Djingo reaches beyond open OS smartphones and addresses Java featurephones, as does Orange's app store strategy, which will evolve to cover the 'three screens - phones, PCs and IPTV.

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How to add Twitter to your website - TechRadar UK

There are two kinds of people these days: those who understand Twitter, and those who don't.

If you're still a doubter, keep in mind that everyone's first foray into the medium is pretty disappointing. Start following the right people, though, and it suddenly clicks into place.

You're chatting with friends, listening to pithy words of wisdom from people you admire and chuckling at the inanities of celebrities. As for news, it always breaks on Twitter first – probably why the media's obsessed with it.

Think of Twitter as an up-to-the minute information feed, and a host of uses for it suddenly manifest, not least how valuable it can be when embedded in your website. It's an ideal complement to a blog or news site, and a positive boon to fan pages.

Getting the right tweets on your site may not even be as difficult as you might expect. If you want to integrate Twitter into your online life but don't know how to, we'll show you what to do.

Twitter via widgets

We first investigated several convoluted and code-heavy ways of embedding tweets into your own pages, but many of them are overkill, especially when Twitter itself provides such elegant and easy-to-use tools. Twitter widgets can be configured using a forms-based interface and may be embedded in any site.

The code returned is good old JavaScript, so it'll go anywhere in a static HTML page or CMS template. There's lots of scope for styling and tweaking, too.

Like many of Twitter's extended features, it's hidden pretty well on the main site. Log in to www.twitter.com and scroll down to the bottom of the page. Once you're there, click 'Goodies', choose 'Widgets' and click 'Widgets for My Website'.

You have a few choices right off the bat. Click on the 'Profile' link and you'll see that it's set up to show tweets from your Twitter account. However, you can replace the username with any Twitter username you know.

Give it a try: enter a new username and click 'Test Settings'. The widget preview will update to show the latest tweets from any account you choose – very handy for showing the feed from a corporate account or displaying incisive celebrity tweets on a fan site.

Configure the feed

Click 'Preferences' to configure the feed. Click 'Poll for New Results' if you want the widget to periodically refresh while the user is on your page – the default behaviour is to only pull results from Twitter when the page is loaded.

You can change the number of tweets retrieved by the widget too. Alter the default of '4' to '6', for example, then hit 'Test Settings' to see the result. You'll notice that the height of the widget changes in response, unless you have 'Include Scrollbar' ticked.

Selecting 'Timed Interval' makes the widget clear the current list of tweets and replace it with a new set periodically. All of the associated settings are highly configurable. Now to dig out some specifics.

Pulling tweets directly from a single account is fine, but Twitter widgets get really powerful when you use them to focus on more specific sets of tweets. The Search and List widgets initially look identical to their Profile counterpart. However, the Search widget allows you to pull tweets from the entire feed using a single keyword.

If that keyword happens to be a hashtag, even better. It enables you to instantly configure Twitter feeds for news and events that can help drive traffic to your blog. For example, let's say you're liveblogging the Eurovision song contest. A perfect sidebar would be a twitter feed of Eurovision tweets.

Making lists

Twitter lists enable you to create bespoke Twitter feeds from a group of users. To make a list, go to www.twitter.com and look for the Lists column in the sidebar. Click 'New List' and a window will pop up prompting you for a name and a description. Fill it in, make sure the list is public and click 'Create List'.

You're taken to a page where you can now search for users and add them one at a time. Alternatively, you can add people to lists directly from your Following or Followers pages.

A tip: you don't have to be following someone to add them to your list. Now you have a list of people set up, you can create a widget that can easily be added to your website.

Uses for this? Let's say you have a list of news providers. Your widget would then be a live-updating news ticker that sits in the sidebar of your site. Or if you have a collaborative blog, you could add all the twitter feeds from contributors to the widget.

Thinking bigger, a search widget and list widget side by side could be used as a bespoke Twitter client aimed at your audience's interests.

Code wrangling

Whichever widget confi guration you finally choose, you'll have a comprehensive degree of control over the look of the widgets on your page. Click 'Dimensions' first. You're able to restrict the size of the widget to fit your page, or tick a box so that it automatically adjusts.

Click 'Appearance' and you can change the colour scheme for the Twitter widget to fit into your pages. Use it with the Chrome browser extension Colour Pick or the Firefox plugin ColourZilla to match the colours in your scheme and site. When you've finished tweaking, click 'Finish and Grab Code'.

A form containing the configured code will appear. The code itself is pretty compact – that's because most of the hard work is done by an external JavaScript file, 'widget.js', referred to in the very first line.

Still, the variable and value pairs here are clear and self explanatory, so the widget script can be used to create further iterations without having to go back through all those menus. Width and height can be changed directly, and you can alter usernames or search terms.

Changing one widget type to another will require more coding, though, so if you want to do that, the best course of action is to return to the site and work back through the menus.

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Sprint ID customizes Android devices with pre-packaged apps, widgets - FierceWireless

SAN FRANCISCO--Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) CEO Dan Hesse unveiled the carrier's new Sprint ID effort here at the CTIA Enterprise & Applications show, which the company said will help customers personalize their Android devices and easily navigate and discover applications. The ID packs will collect applications, widgets, ringtones, wallpapers and more, and will come from brands such as Amazon, Yahoo!, ESPN, Home Shopping Network, Disney and MTV. Sprint ID will be available starting Oct. 10 on two Android smartphones--the Samsung Transform and Sanyo Zio--and a third device, the LG Optimus S later this year.

"Sprint ID is about accessing content," Hesse said, noting that currently only one in four smartphone owners knows how to download an application and use it.

Hesse said he expects users will download different Sprint ID packs--essentially new software skins for phones--for different parts of their lives. For example, a consumer may have a Sprint ID pack for their work and another for their personal life. Consumers can choose from up to five IDs. Once an ID is loaded, users can further customize it with additional apps and content. 

The ID packs can be geared toward consumer tastes as well as enterprise uses.

For content providers, such as MTV, the Sprint ID pack is an opportunity to deliver content to their audience--similar to early MVNOs but without service plans and handsets. In addition, the ID packs offer publishers the opportunity to curate consumers' mobile app download experience, guaranteeing that users obtain an aggregate of integrated, complementary solutions in one fell swoop, said Yahoo Mobile vice president David Katz. "It's a nice model for users to be able to get a bunch of app experiences at once," Katz said in an interview with FierceMobileContent. "It fits into the Yahoo metaphor really nicely. Having all the pieces available allows people to access our content and services in the way they've become acclimated. We're trying to deliver an experience that's integrated and makes sense for our users."

The Sprint ID packs will come free with certain rate plans, or customers can purchase them directly from the phone. More ID packs will be rolled out in the months ahead. According to Steve Elfman, Sprint's president of network operations and wholesale, the ID packs will act as additional distribution channels for the operator. And brands that offer Sprint ID packs likely will be able to sell advertising to generate revenue. 

Hesse said Sprint ID will be available on all future Sprint Android devices. Elfman added that Sprint ID could be expanded to additional platforms beyond Android.

Sprint's news coincided with the launch of three new Android phones by the carrier. Sprint will sell the LG Optimus S for $49 with a contract, the Sanyo Zio by Kyocera for $99 with a contract, and the Samsung Transform for $149 with a contract.

For more:
- see this Sprint ID release
- see this release for the LG Optimus
- see this release on the Sanyo Zio
- see this release on the Samsung Transform

Related Articles:
LG confirms Android, launches new user interface
Motorola shifts focus away from MotoBLUR user interface
Motorola planning to extend MotoBLUR UI to multimedia
Motorola planning to open up Motoblur APIs

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Orange takes widget platform open-source - Mobile Business Briefing

Published: Monday 4 October 2010

Orange Group has made its 'Open Source Mobile Widget Platform' available to the mobile industry, which it says “enables web-based mobile apps to be developed for all mobile devices, ranging from the lowest to the highest form factors.” The company has been using the technology in its own devices since 2009, partnering with widget provider Netvibes earlier in 2010 in order to increase the range of content available to customers. By making it available free of charge, Orange says that it “intends to shake-up the market, creating additional opportunities for developers and content publishers."

The technology will be available to “all telephone manufacturers, integrators, developers and operators” via the GitHub code repository “in the coming weeks.” The solution includes a 'widget reader,' which has already been integrated into “millions of Orange mobiles throughout the world”; server technology, which enables the management of a catalogue of widgets; and tools for creating widgets, documentation and examples of code. In a statement, Patrice Slupowski, VP of Digital Innovation and Communities for the company, said that “we believe open source publishing is for us the best way to guarantee the relevance, openness and long term survival of the platform.”

While Orange is opting to offer its own widget technology open-source, its widget platform is not the only game in town: the China Mobile, SoftBank Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone Group-backed Joint Innovation Lab is also active in this field, and its activities are set to be folded in to the widely-supported Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) in the near future. Another mobile widget platform, OMTP’s BONDI, is also being aligned with WAC, in a move intended to reduce fragmentation within this space. It is not clear why Orange, as a founding WAC member, has decided to take its own widget technology open-source, rather than folding it in with that of its counterparts.

The Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) – an alliance aiming to enable developers to write applications that can be deployed across multiple platforms and operators, and address a potential global market of more than 3 billion users – this morning announced it has released version 1.0 of its spec for developers (a month ahead of schedule) and named a bevy of new supporters.

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Alcatel-Lucent made available a software developer’s kit (SDK) for its My IC Phone, a touch-screen desktop phone for enterprise users, supported by a developer portal which is expected to launch worldwide in November.

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New analysis by Flurry reveals that the sale of virtual goods within mobile apps is already generating more revenue than display advertising on Apple’s iOS platform.

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