How to add meebo widget (gadget) to your blogspot. Web-based IM.

UPDATE: unfortunately Google purchased Meebo (reported $100 million) and closed it down. That's the way to do business these days ! It stops working from July/2012

Google gadgets are .xml files that allow you do to stuff, preview pages, chat, etc..
I use a website called www.meebo.com , which allows to log on all IM accounts at the same time!! E.g. msn messenger, yahoo, google talk, icq and many more. It works on all operating systems: windows, mac, linux.. because you only need a web browser to use it, it also provides many features like audio /video calling, games.
Not only that, but it's possible to create small web-based "widgets", that can be embedded into any webpage, and anyone who logs onto your webpage can send you a message, if you are online on meebo, you can reply instantly!!
Today I decided to post a tutorial on how to do that. You need to register on meebo, and add you IM account there if you wish to use it.

First of all log into meebo:

Then go to Preferences > "meebo me widgets"

Click "Add A New Widget", choose a name for it and click "Create A New Widget! " , and after that click modify (this way it gives you more control over it's appearance").

A new page will open, allowing you to customize the widget. Click "done" after you finished customizing it. This window will close and you will be back to meebo main page with the list of your widgets. Click "Save" at this point or you will loose your customizations.

To the left from the "Modify" button there is some code, navigate through this code until you find  http://widget.meebo.com/mm.swf?********** where *** is some random letters. Take a note of these letters, you will need them later.



Now open notepad, then copy and paste the code below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<Module><ModulePrefs author="Happy Hippo" author_affiliation="None" author_email="None" author_location="UK" description="Meebo Widget" height="250" render_inline="optional" scrolling="false" title="Meebo Widget" title_url="http://read-stuff-here.blogspot.com" width="250"></ModulePrefs><Content type="html">&lt;html&gt; &lt;head&gt;  &lt;style type="text/css"&gt;&lt;!--body { background-color: #FFC;}--&gt;&lt;/style&gt; &lt;/head&gt; &lt;body&gt; &lt;object width="250" height="250" &gt;   &lt;param name="movie" value="http://widget.meebo.com/mm.swf?**********"/&gt;    &lt;embed src="http://widget.meebo.com/mm.swf?**********" width="250" height="250" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</Content></Module>

Replacing the stars with letters from your meebo widget (you can also change it's height and width or background HEX colour). Save this text file as gadget.xml . And this is your google gadget. You need to upload it somewhere (that supports direct linking), for example www.fileden.com  (free sign up required).

Alternatively, you can copy the xml code between <Content type="html">  ..... </Content> and paste directly into your HTML layout, in between one of the <div>... </div> tags of the sidebar on your blog.


Now go to your blogspot page and click customise button>"add a gadget>"add your own"  and paste the direct link to your xml file.

That's it! Now anyone can contact you directly from your webpage, or send offline messages to you.
Enjoy!