How to Make Your Blog Truly Interactive with Wibiya (Invites!)

Most blog authors don’t like to slow down and complicate their websites for any reason and most blog readers hate having to read a page that’s decorated like a Christmas tree with ads, headers and "share this" and "tweet me" buttons.

Sometimes though you encounter a tool that doesn’t complicate your life but just makes things easier and much clearer by replacing some site tools and plugins. I think the Wibiya bar is something like this. I know many of you might fear an extra popping up bar as an extra layer on your site, but I will show you how it’s really pretty unobtrusive.

The bar is a semi-transparent overlay on your site which is home to a number of application or buttons. You can choose which buttons you want to use. Most are for your readers to find or share contents of your site easier or connect your readers with each other or you as the author.

The following list of applications is available right now (from left to right in the image), and includes things you can embed such as games, Facebook, Twitter and more. You can see the Wibiya bar in action on this website. It appears right at the very bottom of your browser window.

The bar is under full development so expect a lot of new features in the coming weeks to months.

• Blog search – the favicon lets you choose between searching the blog or searching Google. The results page loads fast and looks pretty slick.



• Google translate the current page – It’s not the same as having a blog in multiple languages, but Google translate always manages to produce a readable page for your international readers.
• Recent posts – Gives a nice list of your last articles. Basically a mini RSS-reader.
• Random post – Sends your reader to a random page on your site. This and the recent posts button could make your readers stick around for a longer while.
• Image Gallery (not in the screenshot) – shows a cool image gallery of a flickr album using Cooliris.
• Subscribe to RSS – a way to subscribe to the RSS feed.
• Share – share the post on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or Del.icio.us. This could replace some of your other plugins.
• Facebook Connect – when you install the Wibiya bar you automatically start a Facebook community for your site. People can join and they can chat in the group. You can also send them all a message.



• Twitter console – On the right side you can display a Twitter account of your preference. Perhaps your personal account or that of your site. On the left side all the tweets about the page are shown, powered by Backtype. Users can tweet right from the console, with a shortened URL of the page.



• If you want you can show every new visitor a small pop-up with a short welcome or about message.
• Games (not in the screenshot) – this is one of the recent additions. You can embed games on your blog so that people can play games on your site by HeyZap.

These are the current applications. You can switch any on or off on your bar and you can choose a color and favicon that suits your blog. The Wibiya bar is in private beta right now so expect many more applications to appear. When you give feedback now you might even shape it the way you want.

The dashboard on the Wibiya site offers you some interesting statistics like how many people have subscribed to your RSS feed, how many tweets about your pages and such.

The app may be in private beta for some but not for MakeUseOf readers! Sign up here for the beta (the bar is totally free) with your name and the suffix MUO (like Joe Johnson MUO) and you will be approved within 24-48 hours. Let us know in the comments if you have added the bar to your site.

How To Easily Create A Favicon For Your Blog

You’d be amazed at some of the simple things that people can’t do computer / internet-wise. They can install Linux on their computers or set up a webcam security system but when it comes to simple basic things, their minds go completely blank!

So I’ve decided to go “back to basics” for a while, go through my Gmail archive, look at some of the email requests that I have received, and show Make Use Of readers some of the simple basic stuff.

One of the emails I get the most from people is how to create a “favicon” for their blog or website. In case you don’t know what a favicon is, it’s the little logo next to the website address in the browser. Make Use Of has one.

If you have a blog or website then creating a favicon is a very good idea. For a start, if someone has your site bookmarked in their browser then your favicon will also show in their bookmark list. This makes your link stand out from all the links that don’t have favicons. Secondly, a favicon brands your site and gives it that extra professional look.

To give you an idea of how important a favicon is, just look at all the fuss that was made when Google changed their favicon! Some people can attach a lot of importance to what they see in their browser bookmarks and URL bar.

So here is your easy 3 step guide to making your own favicon. Hopefully without all the controversy that Google managed to stir up with theirs! You can only do this if you have your own self-hosted domain.

1. Decide what you want your favicon to be

This can be the hardest part. For big blogs like Make Use Of, it can be the easiest part if there is a logo which can be easily adapted. But if you don’t have a readily available logo to use then you will have to give some thought as to what you want your favicon to be.

For my blog, I used the initials of my blog title, Better Than Therapy – BTT. Before that, I had a Scottish flag and before that a Star Trek logo. Try to find something that represents you, that says something about you or your blog. Try to get something that you are not going to change either. You want something that people are going to remember. Then again, I’m not in a position to say that to you, considering how many times I changed mine!

2. Create the favicon

OK, once you have your logo, now it’s time to shrink it down to favicon size. First of all though, a little trick. If you decide to use letters for your favicon like I did, you can make it by typing the letters onto a MS Word document then when you have them the way you want them, make a screenshot of the letters using a screenshot app such as SnagIt or IrfanView.

To create your favicon, there are LOTS of favicon creators on the internet. We have profiled quite a few in the Directory here, here, here and here. The one I have always used and which has never let me down is this one.

As the site says, just upload your image to the site and it will create a smaller 16×16 version for you. This is done in seconds and you should make sure that the smaller version has an “.ico” file format.

3. Upload the favicon to your blog / website

OK, we’re nearly there. You have your newly made favicon in your computer and now you need to get it uploaded to your domain so that when people come visiting to your site, they’ll see your logo sitting on their browser URL bar. So how do you get it there? Very easy.

First of all, the favicon’s location in your site has to be at http://yoursite.com/favicon.ico. So upload the favicon to your site using a FTP program or perhaps your hosting company offers their own uploading program? Just make sure that the favicon sits in the main root directory at http://yoursite.com/favicon.ico and at no other location, otherwise it won’t appear when it needs to.

Next, go to the template of your blog and at the beginning of the template, you’ll see a piece of code that says . Immediately after , enter the following :

Then save the whole lot.

Now one of two things will happen – your favicon will either appear instantly or it may take some time to appear. With my Scottish flag one, it appeared instantly and with my “BTT” one, it took 3 or 4 days to show up!! It’s even worse with Internet Explorer. So after you’ve done the above, and you don’t see anything, don’t start to get angry and think “I’ve wasted all that time for nothing!”. It WILL work eventually – it may just take a day or two for the favicon code to kick in properly. But when it does, it will work 24/7.

So does anyone have any strange and unique favicons that they would like to tell us about? What do you have sitting up on the URL bar when net surfers come to visit?