New visitors to myAOL this week will see a whole new welcome experience designed to make first-time setup quick and easy! First, you can select from a subset of our stylish themes, then choose any or all interests and last enter a ZIP code. Clicking "I'm Done" will apply the selected theme, add special-interest pages to the newly-created site, and apply the ZIP code to any location-based content modules.
Another site update is something existing and new users alike will enjoy -- we've made adding new stuff like content modules, feeds, themes and pages to your page easier! Simply click on the blue "Add Stuff" button now located on the right-hand side of the page above your modules and you'll see a window open below offering featured items which can be added with one click to your page, or you can click into the gallery to browse all modules.
You can also select Feeds, Themes and Pages on the left-hand navigation. Clicking on Feeds will allow you to quickly enter any blog or RSS feed URL into the field to add to your page in a new module.
Clicking on Themes allows you to browse all of our awesome page skins and click to apply them to your page. Select Pages and browse our ready-made pages full of cool content modules -- this is a quick and simple way to make your site more robust.
Facebook junkies can now get notified of updates right from myAOL - Yay! Check out the new Facebook Notifier myAOL Gadget which we recently launched. The widget displays information from your Facebook account including new updates, status messages, photos and more. Click the button to add it to your page now.
The new myAOL Facebook gadget makes it easy to keep track of Facebook while also keeping up on all of your news, weather and email updates on myAOL.
Please note: This widget requires you to login to a Facebook account in order to see updates. You may need to make sure your browser allows popups to signin to Facebook from this gadget.
Everyone is looking to save money at the pump these days! myAOL has just added a Local Gas Prices module that you can customize to any U.S. city and find the lowest gas prices within a 10-mile radius. Add it to your page and start saving today!
We have some updates for you. We have added new themes! Simply click on the Themes link in the header, and you'll notice we've added a second page of new theme options. Of course, we'll be continually adding new themes:
We've also added new modules. One module I'd like to highlight is Pandora. Pandora is an online music radio service. They have a variety of great music radio stations! You can currently find this module under the "Recently Added" section or you can simply search our widget gallery for 'Pandora'.
Let's take a brief and closer look at YourMinis, which AOL acquired last week. YourMinis create widgets for you to use on your blog, website, startpage, and desktop. Yes, all 4!
So how does it work?
First, go to the widget gallery, and let's choose the "YouTube Videos" widget which is currently under the Top Rated widgets:
Next, after selecting the widget, you will see a preview of the widget. In the grid view, select the "COPY ME" button to select your destination for the widget. You should see this now:
Next, you choose your destination for the widget. For example, if you are using Windows Vista, you will choose the Windows icon in the 3rd Row. Or, if you want to use it in FaceBook, you will select the FaceBook icon in the 1st Row. I will choose the first option 'Copy Embed Code', which will provide me an HTML code snippet and I simply just copy/paste the code into this blog entry. Each blog type differs in how they require you to embed HTML code, but many of the popular blogs are listed as default options (shown above).
Done!
**NOTE: currently, only a limited number of YourMinis work with myAOL. For the specific list of widgets, please view this previous blog post.
Goowy is a hot company that offers a variety of sleek and fun widgets for you to use. We already offer a number of rich yourminis widgets created by Goowy within myAOL but you can definitely expect to see new Goowy's widgets soon in the myAOL product, so we can offer you more new and improved widgets!
Please welcome the Goowy team to the AOL family, and more importantly, we hope you will equally like what they have to offer.
Do you love movies? If the answer is yes, then we've just added the perfect new module for your myAOL page. It's the Moviefone module, and it is packed full of great movie info and functionality. While browsing movies that are coming soon to theaters, you will get a live countdown and can click to watch the trailer. Or, you can browse movies that are currently in the theater to get showtime information. The "Find Listings Near You" link allows you to enter your ZIP Code to get a rundown of your local theater's listings.
We just added another new module today - the MapQuest Module. MapQuest is America's #1 mapping website on the Web. You can use this convenient module to instantly get maps and routes, or you can use it to find businesses and places.
Below is a sample map of San Francisco:
You can find the module here to add to your own page!
We recently added a new module, thanks to TheFind.com, that could be very helpful this holiday season as you try and keep track of what you are going to get everyone for the holidays.
TheFind.com miniShopper module (shown above) offers the ability to create and maintain a simple shopping list as well as search TheFind.com for all of your shopping list items.You can add the module to your page today by visiting HERE. Happy shopping!
You are now able to add the "What's Hot" module from Mgnet onto your own myAOL start page! What's Hot will provide you with all the latest and hottest news across the Web. The module itself is a nice image cloud that updates itself in real time.
You can also tailor it to your interests. You can choose Sports as your specified topic of interest, for example, or you can even enter in a search query if you want to narrow your results. Below is an example from searching for "Tiger Woods":
This module is available in the myAOL module directory, and you can find it here. It is also available for iGoogle, and you can find it here.
A few weeks ago, Frank Gruber, myAOL Product Manager, introduced myAOL at the Widget Summit organized by Niall Kennedy in San Francisco on a panel dedicated to discussing the personal homepage space. The session was an hour long discussion with a cast of industry experts. I had a chance to capture a video clip of his introduction.
It's still early in this new myAOL beta, but so far we've been getting great feedback. I'm most excited about all the content and features we'll be adding in the coming months so you can add more of your favorites things to your page - like Gmail, Netflix, Mapquest, Local News, Theaters and so much more.
In the meantime, there are some pretty creative things you can do with the features we've already launched. Here are some things I've done within my own pages.
1) I created a page called FRIENDS. - To see comments people have left on my Flickr pictures, I used the Add Any Feed widget and the feed URL that Flickr offers it's users. - Using the same Add Any Feedwidget, I also added the Flickr feed for my friend's pictures. - For both I changed the module option so that it shows both Headlines & Summaries - so it shows the pictures. Here's how they look (below). - I also added the Facebook widget from the Google Gadget section. - Again using the Add Any Feed module, I added Buddy Feeds for my friends. Learn about your Buddy Feed here.
2) I wanted my FRIENDS page to have other updates on it too, so here's what I did. - I created a folder called "friends" in Favorites, and added feed URLS from Facebook, Twitter and my friends blogs. - Then I selected the folder and clicked the Mix & Share button, clicked the Share button and then selected the URL that it displayed. - I copied that URL and pasted it into a new Add a Feed module on my page.
3) I created another new page called SUGAR and filled it with all the fun PopSugar content. You can see all the PopSugar content here.
Here's what part of my page looks like...
4) I added the Photos "Ready Made Page", and using the AOL Public Galleries module, I changed the option to Tag and typed in Maine. Now i can view all the new photos other people are uploading and tagging "maine". Experiment with tags to find something you might like.
Create your own unique page and share your thoughts and ideas with us.
Keeping with our open platform philosophy, we are pleased to announce that myAOL is now offering some of your favorite Goowy yourminis widgets to be added to your personalized home page. The flashy yourminis that have been added to the myAOL Gallery include the following widgets:
Visit the myAOL Gallery to find a yourminis category in the left column. Clicking on the category will display all of the yourminis widgets currently offering on myAOL (see gallery image below). With yourminis on myAOL you can create an entire page filled with widgets similar the page below. You can edit the yourminis widgets within myAOL by simply clicking the color icons in the top right corner of each widget and your changes will be automatically saved for you. Personalize your myAOL page with yourminis today! Finally, special thank you to Alex Bard, Gary Benitt, Jeremy Suriel, Sashi Bommakanty and the rest of the San Diego-based yourminis team - it has been a lot of fun working with you to make yourminis on myAOL a reality.
We are pleased to have just added a local news widget to our content gallery on myAOL. The widget is powered by Topix and offers an aggregation of local news based on the ZIP Code you provide when you first visited myAOL. We are extremely pleased to be working with Topix. Check out the widget below:
If you don't recall what ZIP Code you enter or want to change it, simply add the widget to your page and then click on the "options" link in the top right corner of the widget. CLICK HERE to find out more information about the Topix Local News widget and add it to your myAOL page NOW!
AOL 
A few weeks ago, 
