Opera Widgets blog

We're getting warmed up for the holidays here in Oslo, and nothing feels better than giving. With our "Win a Wii with Opera Wiidgets" contest we pick a winner every third day who will receive an Opera goodie bag.

When	Who	Widget	Why
Dec 18th	Xexor	Opera Snow	Good, clean code. Pleasing aesthetics. Fitting theme.
Dec 21st	Jiraffus	Lingvo	Widget made with good, clean code. He also took help from the widget resources.
Dec 25th	Ja002H	MyTV	Shows TV listings for almost any service in the US. Good animations. Very configurable.
Dec 28th	krzychoocpp	Video Manager	Flash Video search Widget from Google, YouTube and metacafe
Jan 1st	gaq	cqsoft.com.ar infocenter	Good use of animations, nice menu, several feeds and lots of information
Jan 4th	magnus.an	iLike	Find websites other Opera-users like and share your favourite websites with the world.
Jan 8th	Shoust	My Opera Explorer	Rich features. Innovative. Blog posting, file explorer and statisics on your My Opera account.
Jan 11th	Skid94	PaxKel Radio Widget	Allows PaxKel listeners to view current song's album cover. Entertainment RSS feed also provided.
Jan 23rd	The winners of the Nintendo Wii and DS Lite are revealed.

We've run this widget competition for a little more than a month. And by now I know you're all wondering what we've got planned for the big prize. I mean, we've got weekly prizes from ThinkGeek, two Nokia 770s for our monthly prizes and then the Big Mac.

We're giving the winner a tricked out, double stuffed, supersized Macbook Pro. 15" screen, sweet Intel Core Duo and all the trimmings. But we're adding a little secret sauce too. We're including all the software to make it a dual boot machine - meaning you can run both Windows XP and Mac OS X. When you add it all up, the total prize is valued at more than $2500. You know, we couldn't give away just anything to the eventual widget maestro.

This isn't Vegas; you've got an excellent chance of winning. We get a handful of widgets each week. All entries - every single one - will be eligible for the Grand Prize, so get coding. The clock ticks...

Good luck to all!

So you've seen the announcement of the Widget World Cup. You're probably wondering "WTF?!? Do I have to enter more than once? Do I have to do twice the work? What's up, man?"

The answer is nope.

Let me first explain the differences. The My Opera widget competition is to get developers like Benjamin and Johnnysaucepn creating cool widgets. The Widget World Cup is to show people how fun and useful they are. So they work together. And since they're related, we had to make submitting for both really easy.

And we did.

[Charlton-Heston-as-Moses voice]From this moment forward, you need only select your country when uploading widgets. You will be entered in both competitions automatically. Let my people upload [/Charlton-Heston-as-Moses voice]

But what if you already made a widget and want to enter? No sweat. You need to do three things, all really easy.

1. Edit your widget (log on and upload an edited version of your widget or just upload the same one)
2. Specify your country
3. Write an email to our prize jury explaining why you deserve to be Ms. America.

Just kidding...

3. Write an email to widgetcomp@opera.com and let us know the widget and country. This is to help us keep track of everything.

So keep making widgets and tell you friends to try them out. You could walk away with all our cool prizes and some cash. If I only knew a little javascript, I'd give you guys a run for your money. Instead you can just make a run at ours.

So now we know Benjamin Joffe has won for the third straight week. I'm sure you're all curious to know exactly what ThinkGeek goodies are headed to his doorstep.

Week One:
1. Airzooka Air Gun
2. Altec Active Noise Reduction Headphones

Week Two:
1. GameCom Pro 1 USB Gaming Headset
2. USB Beverage Chiller
3. USB Mini Lava Lamp

Week Three:
1. Pixel Blocks
2. Sonic Impact SoundPads
3. ThermalTake XRay
4. Airzooka Air Gun

You should immediately notice that Benjamin has won two Airzooka's and two headsets. What can I say? We never anticipated that one widget bandit would run away with the competition.

I should say congratulations to Benjamin. He's made some excellent widgets and hopefully there's more to come. Remember that next week, if we don't have a different winner, Benjamin will walk away with a Nokia 770. It's up for grabs as our first monthly prize.

I'm sure the title gives it away, but Benjamin Joffe has done the double. Congratulations! This time the competition was fierce and it came down to just a few points, but it still seems that he cannot be taken down.

The winning widget, Bounce, puts everyone into the World Cup spirit. You may not be Ronaldinho - in fact you probably aren't - but if you can bounce the football more than 40 times, who am I to judge? My personal record is 29, but I plan to spend a few more hours practicing...er, testing the widget.

So now we will send two prize packs from ThinkGeek to Ben in Australia. For this week, he receives:

1. GameCom Pro 1 USB Gaming Headset

2. USB Beverage Chiller

3. USB Mini Lava Lamp

We've got many more weeks to go, but so far Ben is undefeated. Is there no one who can challenge him? I suppose we will find that answer next week.

Good luck and happy coding!