Free Data Feeds

Content is the drab name for the exciting stuff that you find on a Web site. Some content you can and will create yourself. Lazy Webmasters have no scruples about using free content provided by others.

The free content I am touting here is, for the most part, data-driven. Lurking behind each of these stickers is a sophisticated database that feeds information onto your site. Even if you had the programming skills to create the database and interface, you wouldn't have access to the data feeds. Let's look at some options:

Add a weather sticker: You can include a forecast on your Web page. The free weather sticker is at (www.wunderground.com) First, type in the zip code or city name of the place you want to provide the forecast for. Then, look for the link that says "Add this sticker to your home page." Follow the on-screen instructions.

Poll your visitors: (www.createapoll.com/) offers free polling software. Put an opinion poll on your Website with immediate feedback to your users. (figure 2) Polls can either be radio buttons (as pictured) or a dropdown box. This poll doesn't screen out multiple voting. So feel free to vote many, many times for this column. Or any of my columns.

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Add a link to Congress: Congress.Org offers a free sticker that lets people track down and write to their Federal elected officials just by typing in a zip code. An expanded sticker, also free, includes media and issue links. Go to (congress.org/congressorg/dbq/stickers/?command=stickers) to download. Open this popup window to see the COngress.org sticker in action.

Gas Buddy: Looking for low gas prices? Gas Buddy (www.sanantoniogasprices.com/) will add sticker to your page that lists the high and low prices for any area in the US and Canada. In Texas, prices are listed for Austin, Houston, Dallas, El Paso, Fort Worth and San Antonio. Clicking on the sticker takes you to the Gas Buddy site to get a list of the stations.

Computer virus warnings: Trend MicroVirus has several customizable stickers at (www.trendmicro.com/syndication/vinfo/). You can list top viruses, virus advisories and alerts. To see this in action — and to learn some variations on the code — open this popup window.

News Ticker: (www.newsindex.com/freenews.html) and (www.7am.com/ticker/addticker.html) are both news tickers. The first one lets you select a topic, and feeds in news headlines just on that topic. 7am.com feeds generic news headlines. The most sophisticated is New York Times headlines. You can select the categories - arts, books, technology, front page, international, sports, etc. - the number of headlines and the color and fonts. All you do is cut and paste the code..Get it at www.nytimes.com/gst/nytheadlines.html. Open this popup window to see the NYT headlines in action.

Looking for more free content? Sticky Web at www.freesticky.com/stickyweb/ lists hundreds of sites that offer free content, from games to lottery number pickers. Stickiness is a Web marketing term that means people "stick" to your Web site — stay on it for a long time, or keep coming back to it, day after day or week after week.

So what's the catch? First, you're going to get advertising from the supplier. All of these stickers have a link back to the sponsor. If people click on a sticker and go to the sponsor's page they may never return to your site.

Second, the sticker might not fit aesthetically with your site. Some are downright ugly. A red, white and blue sticker will stand out like a sore thumb on your purple and orange site. It might be too big, dominating your other, more important content. Some sponsors offer customized options, some don't.

Third, as with any data that you are sucking in from another site, you lose control. If the sponsor's site is down, you're the one that has a void, and probably a broken graphics link, smack dab in the middle of your home page. Finally, some Webmasters get a bad case of sticker-mania. Stickers pop up all over the site, like measles. Practice restraint.

On the plus side, you are getting high quality content. All you ever have to do is paste in a few lines of HTML, and then never worry about it again. There are enough choices that you can be prudent in matching the data feed to your site.