Embeddable software rocks

by Rick Stratton, founder

I love software services that embed into a website, rather than install into a server.  It's easier to setup, easier to manage, easier to update. 

Adsense was the service that made that light go off in my head.  Copy and paste some code and ads start showing on a site.  And with Youtube, people started doing it every day.

This past weekend I was reminded, once again, about the benefits of copy & paste software: Wufoo.  I made some changes in Wufoo.com to our contact form that runs on our blog, Feed.Us, our demo site and inside our application.  I added a few fields, changed some text and then saved the form.  Voila... the form was updated on allover Feed.Us.

Of course the problem with these widget style software services is that they are javascript and thus rendered in the browser cannot be indexed by Google.  But most people don't need a contact form to be indexed.  And javascript based comment systems (like Disqus), it's an advantage - spammers can't get their links indexed into Google.

For Feed.Us, we created a serverside version of this embeddable software. It requires the extra step of adding one file on your server but still maintains the cut-and-paste style software theme and is indexable.

Here are the embeddable website services I love and use.  Can you please use the comments to add more?

Forms:  Wufoo and FormAssembly.com
RSS & email newsletters: Feedburner
Comments:  Disqus & Intense Debate
Links:  Delicious
Stats: Google Analytics & Chartbeat
Feedback/Survey forms - kampyle, uservoice
Customer help & website IM - Plugoo & Meebo 
Live camera: UStream.com
Video: Youtube & Viddler.com
Ads: Adsense
Maps: Google maps

CMS: Feed.Us (of course!)