Last week I came across a new TWS* that is pretty cool. The folks at Google had played with this little gadget internally for months when someone had the bright idea to make it available to the public. It’s called Blogger Play and it’s a window on the world. Or at least the world of people that have sites on Google’s free blog service, Blogger.
What it “plays” is a slide show of photographs that people have added to their blogs. As a new image is added to any one of the millions of blogs powered by Blogger, they show up in this random shuffle. The eclectic mix of images is a mesmerizing procession of snapshots and images from people all over the world. I was fascinated at the wide variety— family photos, technical drawings, corporate logos, you name it.
The viewer allows you to modify the speed at which the images change, and pause or stop when you see something interesting. If you care to learn more about that image a link and information about the blogger who uploaded the image is also provided. Click the picture and you’re taken to the blog where the image originates. Well, it’s virtual origin at least.
Play quickly became so popular that Google whipped up one of their “gadgets” so users could add a miniature player to their iGoogle starting page. Have a look and see what you think of this unusual window on the world.
* TWS = Time Wasting Site
