Introducing The New Wibiya Toolbar at RErockstar.com!

By rerockstar • December 31st, 2009

Wibiya Toolbar at RErockstar.com

What’s that at the bottom of the screen?

I have been trying to get the Wibiya Toolbar installed here at RErockstar.com for some time now (back when it was still in beta). For some coding reason, the toolbar hated me and refused to work. Occasionally it would show up, but when it did, it was blank. I tried just about everything, but all to no avail.

Recently, Wibiya released a new version and with a few simple tweaks on my end and some great support from their staff on Twitter, we’re now live with the Wibiya Toolbar.

What does it do?

Along the bottom of your screen, you’ll see the Wibiya Toolbar. We’ll start from left to right and discuss some its features.

Change Search – I’m currently working out the kinks in this section, but if you enter words or phrases into the search box to the right, you will be able to search either on RErockstar.com for those words or phrases, or if you switch to the Google icon, you can search the web. Unfortunately at the moment, no matter which you tell it search, it always searches the web. I think there’s a conflict in my code somewhere, so I’ll have to work on that.

Search Box – Enter words or phrases and click the magnifying glass to search the web (and soon, my site).

Recent Posts – Here you’ll find a list of…no surprise here, my most recent posts. I’m going to talk to the Wibiya developers about allowing more than one feed for this part of the toolbar, so that hopefully someday, you’ll be able to see all my latest posts from across the web in one easy to read spot. The toolbar is also pulling in the retweet images from TweetMeme instead of the photos I use for each blog. I’ll be talking to Wibiya about this as well.

YouTube – Now this is a cool feature. Using Cooliris technology, this button pulls up all of my YouTube videos in one convenient place for you to watch them. Looking at one of my San Antonio neighborhood posts and wondering what other videos I’ve done? Just click this button and you can see them all – from homes to neighborhoods, Frank and Sally to my vlogs – it’s all there with an amazing user interface (very similar to Apple’s iTunes look and feel).

Lots of empty space – You’ll notice there’s a lot of blank space until about a third of the way to the end of your screen. Wibiya has many different apps for the toolbar and I will be adding more in the future (and they told me there’s some great apps on the way), but for now this is just dead real estate – waiting for something new to appear.

Facebook: Join Community – When you click this button, the screen that opens is a window to Facebook. From here you can share posts and pages from RErockstar.com with your Facebook friends, see other members of the community, and interact with them. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing this aspect of the site grow as one of my goals is to build an informative community around the site where we can share our experiences and thoughts about San Antonio (and not just real estate).

Share – This button does exactly what it says. Click it and a list of places to share the particular page you’re looking at will pop up – select one, fill in the required info and share RErockstar.com with the world. Most of the standards are in there: email, Twitter, Facebook, delicious, Stumbleupon, Digg, Friendfeed, Technorati, and several others. I expect this list to grow as social media grows more and more – some will stay, new ones will appear, and some will never be heard from again.

Twitter – Pulled up this panel will give you a view of my most current tweets (in the right hand panel) and mentions of things from RErockstar.com mentioned by others (in the left hand panel). You can also follow me direct from the panel and send out your own tweets about pages and posts on the site.

Subscribe to RSS Feed – If you hate coming back everyday and checking to see what’s new at RErockstar.com, you can subscribe to the RSS feed. If you have no idea what RSS is or how it can help you, check out the video, RSS in Plain English from Common Craft (who do some amazing video “how-to” work). From here you can subscribe to both RErockstar.com and my photo blog, “I Saw It In San Antonio.“

Notifications – The icon of the man sending out radio waves is for notifications. Here I can write short notes to tell you about some new feature, welcome you to the site, or update you with the latest real estate news. Right now, there is a welcome message and once you’ve seen it, you won’t be shown it each time you return. Watch this space for anything I can think of that I feel might be valuable to you.

Join Chat – I’m not sure how long the chat option will last. I’d like to see it turn into a place that I can leave open while working so that people who have questions as they read the site can stop in and ask. It even has a video option, which makes for a much more personalized experience (although I guess I better go brush my hair before I start broadcasting) when communicating. We’ll see how this one works out. If you have a question, stop by and see if I’m on.

Close Toolbar – If the Wibiya Toolbar is distracting you or blocking some information you’d like to see, just click the icon that looks like two down arrows and it will minimize the toolbar. Clicking the two up arrows will re-expand it for you to use again.

screenshot courtesy of me, my MacBook Pro, and the Wibiya Toolbar.