10 Ways to Spice Up Your Blog

Go to Image Gallery

Why stop at embedding presentations? Zoho Viewer opens the door to many other kinds of documents, including Word, Excel, and PDF. That means you can embed, say, a product manual, budget worksheet, or just about anything else your readers might find useful. You don't even have to sign up for a Zoho account (which is free anyway); just upload your document, choose a size for the embed frame, then paste the supplied code into your blog. Visitors can then view the document without having to open or download anything.

If you really want to open the lines of communication (and you've got time to spare), consider adding a Meebo Me widget. In case you're not familiar with it, Meebo is a browser-based, cross-platform chat tool. The widget extends this functionality to your blog, adding a personalized chat window where visitors can instant-message you directly. You can choose from three different window sizes and a variety of color schemes. And like Meebo itself (one of my all-time favorite Web apps), Meebo Me costs nothing to use.

Ready for your close-up? BlogTV embeds a streaming-video player in your blog, thus putting you center-stage (make that center-webcam) for whatever live, real-time event you care to broadcast. You can show a product demo, live-blog a trade show, interview an industry dignitary, or just star in a show of your own design. The player includes a chat window to encourage community participation, and BlogTV allows for two webcams to stream simultaneously, so you can team up with a remote friend or co-worker. Neat stuff.

There’s nothing like a little added value to make readers appreciative of your site. The Movavi Online Video Converter widget makes it simple for users to leverage Movavi’s eponymous service, which converts uploaded video files to just about any format under the sun. Visitors simply choose a file, specify the desired output format, then supply an e-mail address where they can receive notification that the conversion is complete (along with a download link). It’s a surefire way to generate some goodwill, especially if your blog has something to do with video or gadgets or the like.