Ultimately, though perhaps not at first, a widget will also result in increased traffic to your PT blog, and thus there should be some incentive for blog hosts to permit the widget.

However, if I were a blog host, I would be tempted to say,  OK, but we want the widget for all our columnists/bloggers, which may or may not pose a problem for Project PM.

I do not have a good answer with regard to resistance by blog hosts in the start up phase.

However, taking a look at your PT column, I see Digg, StumbleUpon and reddit widgets.  Project PM is sort of an inverse reddit (the recommendation comes from a collective of other bloggers, rather than from the general readership), and the effects on the blog hosts' readership numbers should be positive, like reddit's effect.

On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 1:17 PM, Todd Essig <tessig@me.com> wrote:

Thanks Barrett. Getting clearer. So, let me ask as an example, how would this work with my Psychology Today blog? It's highly unlikely PT will let me put a widget on their server, especially one directing attention away from PT advertisers and other PT content. Is the intent that Project PM bloggers would have to have their own blog on something like wordpress or typepad? Or am I missing something?

Thanks,

--Todd

On Jul 30, 2010, at 12:49 PM, Barrett Brown wrote:

Sorry, I didn't read your earlier question carefully enough. We had indeed planned on having the widget exist on a blogger's site, as a sort of plug-in, as we want it to display the headlines of the posts that been pushed by the blogger in question so that those of the blogger's readers who don't have the reader widget will see the headlines in question nonetheless (of course, those with the reader widget will see a different set of headlines than what is displayed on a particular site, having set it to display those stories that have been pushed some number of times regardless of where it may have originated or where on the network it had been pushed to). Let me know if that clears up the question and if you think there might be a better way to approach this; we're entirely open to changing any aspect of the network if there is concern about potential inefficiencies.

On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 9:34 PM, Todd Essig <tessig@me.com> wrote:

Hi Barrett --

I'm (slowly) going through the materials you sent to me about Project PM. Your answer below seems at odds with the google doc "Project PM Widget: Reader Functions and Blogger Functions" which seems to say that the widget lives on the blogger site and not the blogger's home computer. Local and not server widgets are "reader only."

Needing server-side widgets for bloggers seems like it will add tremendous friction to the network.

Please clarify.

Thanks,

--Todd

PS -- I always knew you were sentient program bent on world domination.

On Jul 23, 2010, at 5:50 PM, Barrett Brown wrote:

My understanding is that as part of the content network I'd blog/write as per usual, even on Forbes if I decide to follow the T/S people there, but at least my PsychologyToday.com blog. And within your network I'd have a program (your widget) on my computer that lets me push my work out to other writers on the network? I guess I'm asking for some specific details about how your "widget" works. 

That's entirely correct, and I'll forward you some more detailed materials, including some ongoing discussions we're having regarding the specifics.

 

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302