Better Bars
Community Portal Page: A mini-site for your Conduit community
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In the not too distant future you will be able to give your community members a real place to call home with your community toolbar's new Community Portal Page. It's a free, hosted, and fully-customizable Web page that serves as a central hub for all of your toolbar's peripheral pages: Tell-a-Friend, Privacy, Contact, Feedback, and Help. All of these pages, by the way, are now fully customizable, so you can match them to the look and feel of your site...
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You can use your new Community Portal Page to capture the essence of your community, and to give your members some breathing space. Use your Portal to showcase:
The Best of Your Site - Embed the most popular elements of your site, straight into the Portal Page.
The Best of Your Bar - Embed the most popular elements of your site, straight into the Portal Page.
- RSS Reader - Put your top feeds in their own box.
- Search Box - Search is sticky. Let your users search Web straight from the Portal.
- Live Chat - Give your community members a bigger space to meet and share their thoughts.
- 2-Way Messaging - Broadcast community messages straight to the Portal.
- Gadgets - Give your users Flickr slides, YouTube feeds, iTunes, Babylon, and games.
An initial version of the Portal Page is ready NOW. Go to the new 'Portal' tab in your community toolbar's Control Panel and check it out.
HINT: Make it great and your users will make it their homepage...
Gadget Windows: Take users beyond the boundaries of your bar
For all of you Forum-savvy ConduiTimes readers out there, you may have already heard about this cool, new capability. For those who are still in the dark, strap on your seatbelts; we're about to blow your mind!
This component will give you unlimited additional real-estate and will give your users unlimited freedom and access to the fun and useful Web stuff they love - straight from your toolbar! Go on, dare to go beyond the 20-pixel boundaries of your bar and open up a whole new world of windows...
What are Gadget Windows?
They're windows of any size and number that open with one click from your community toolbar, and contain whatever Web pages you like. You can rig one window with an advanced, multi-field sign-up or login form; another with your favorite widget; and yet another with your top Google Gadget. The possibilities are endless!
Alternately, your users can choose to add pre-defined Gadget Windows to their toolbars, from our existing list:
- YouTube Top Feeds - Your users can use the window to get access to the coolest videos, straight from your toolbar
- Flickr Slides - Users can see a daily slide-show of top Flickr photos from the window, or keep their personal photos close to home, straight from your toolbar
- Games - Users can play Blackjack, Slot Machine, Backgammon, and Memory, all from different windows
- iTunes Music - Your users can hear the latest tunes from the iTunes Music Store, straight from your toolbar
- Yahoo! Music Top 10 - Gives your users unlimited access to more than 1,000,000 songs from more than 60,000 albums
- Reference Services - Gives your users single-click access to Babylon and Wikipedia dictionary, thesaurus, translator, and fact-checker
- Rhapsody Top Feeds - Gives your users the top songs and album feeds from the world's #1-rated digital music service
- LabPixies TV - Lets users watch their favorite TV stations, straight from your toolbar
- Practical Functions - Users can choose windows that contain a Mini Clock, Calculator, To-Do List, or Calorie Counter
Coming soon... You will be able to build and change the Gadget Windows from your Control Panel. For now, you can get them going with the instructions we've posted in the Forum.
Community Search: Build-your-own search engine
Ask and ye shall receive! Here by popular demand, we are proud to announce Conduit's new build-your-own Community Search. Whether your community of users is most interested in Health, Environmental Issues, Games, or whatever - this new component enables you to create a unique custom search engine around their particular hot topic.
It's simple! All you have to do is:
- Pre-define the parameters of the search by entering in your list of hand-picked domains (ones that you know will be relevant and useful) to include in the results.
- Your new engine will appear on your toolbar's list of search options.
Give your users more targeted, higher-quality search results on their most cherished topics. Build your Community Search today!
Coming soon... You will be able to Build-your-own Community Search engine from your Control Panel. Meanwhile, you can get instructions on how to create one from the Forum.
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