OpenLinkz

OpenLinkz is a new widget I have been working on that I'm ready to share.

OpenLinkz is a pop-up menu widget that automatically provides links to commonly used information sources organized by a particular theme. As examples, themes can relate to the stock market, technology, general news, social sites, maps and geography, etc.

OpenLinkz takes a search term that you provide (usually the key word you are highlighting in your text) and constructs the links to each site listed in the theme so the user can immediately retrieve information related to that key word.

So far, there are three ways to use OpenLinkz and I have a nickname for each:

• stockLinkz - OpenLinkz for stock market bloggers
• techLinkz - OpenLinkz for technology bloggers
• newsLinkz - OpenLinkz for those who write about news and current events

Here are some examples (move your mouse and hover over the underlined word):

- Microsoft (MSFT) recently reported strong earnings.

- AJAX is driving the growth of Web 2.0

- Senate leader Harry Reid says the war in Iraq is lost.

OpenLinkz is written in Javascript but the major widget makers consider it an "in-line HTML widget" because it interacts with elements of your page (but in a good way!) To use it, you will need to learn how to use a SPAN or ANCHOR tag and designate a CLASS name for it. The details are all in the Setting up OpenLinkz post.