Facebook, MySpace or Hi5…most social networking sites offer you various goodies that you can add to your profile to reflect your interests, passions, views or sense of humor. These small, interactive programs go by the name of widgets or applications.
Many social networking sites have their own set of widgets. They also open up their platforms to other developers who can then develop these for each site. For instance, you can add YouTube videos to your page on Facebook or MySpace. On Facebook, you’ll also find scores of other applications that can add pizzazz to your profile page. Some examples are FunWall, a single place to share messages, pictures, videos, greeting cards and so on; Likeness, an application that enables you to answer simple quizzes and compare your answers with those of your friends on Facebook; Hug Me, for hugging, tickling, poking and doing other such things to your Facebook friends; Movies by Flixster to write, read and share reviews, participate in quizzes or create your own, and share your tastes in films with other Facebook members; or lots of games like Scrabulous, an online version of the popular word game.
Other networking sites have their own set of widgets. MySpace’s extensive apps gallery has choices ranging from Chinese astrology to SuperPoke and fun quizzes and widgets. At Bebo, you can add a pink ribbon to your profile to show your support for the cause of breast cancer. There are also loads of fun applications here—you can create your own greeting cards, add a LOLcat to your profile, share your passion for Harry Potter with like-minded members, and so on. Orkut is not far behind. You can use emoticons of all kinds, play MTV Roadies Battleground, surprise or tease your friends with iPoke, add music and videos with iLike or rate and share reviews of Hindi movies with Chakpak Movies.
There are also some third-party widgets that work across social networking sites. Here are some of the popular ones.
Create slideshows and fun images
You can create slideshows of your favorite photos and share them on MySpace, Hi5, Friendster, Orkut and others. You can do this at rockyou.com or slide.com. On these sites, you can also create fun images by adding effects like glitter, borders and animated text to your existing photos. You can also create text with these special effects to work as captions or for other purposes on your profile page.
Add videos
If you’ve uploaded or seen a video on YouTube that you’d like to add to your profile page, go to the YouTube site and click the link that says ‘YouTube on your site’. Follow the instructions there to get the video on your profile page. Some networking sites like MySpace also have their own set of uploaded videos.
Add playlists
At www.playlist.com, you can create your own music playlists. Here, you can register yourself and search for legally available music on the web. You can then create a personal playlist and share it with others on your social networking page.
