Dotting Demo

Several Blue.Us users have requested more posts on the blog from developers (our excuse: too busy building features). In any case, I've temporarily ascended from my "development dungeon" today (inspired, in large part, by the 70 degree Seattle weather) to talk a little bit about Dotting, one of my favorite Blue.Us features (in my best 80's Shake-n-Bake commercial voice: And I Helped!). One of the coolest things about Dotting is that you don't need to install any software -- in most cases, you can just drag the links into your toolbar and you're ready to go. For those who haven't yet seen Dotting in action, I put together a brief video which demonstrates (in all the fuzzy glory that is Flash video at 425x350) the installation process, followed by a quick floor lamp shopping exercise. So, it's that simple ... if that was tough to follow, here's the rundown of the action:

1. Click the "Set up Dotting" link.
2. Drag the "Dot This!" link to links toolbar.
3. Visit a Web site (in this case, I chose lamp shopping, because that's what all developers do on the Internet).
4. Click the "Dot This!" link in the toolbar. This is where the "magic" happens -- notice that Blue.Us has automatically selected an image, categorized the page as "Shopping", and extracted a description of the item. Since every field is optional, I could publish it right away -- in this case, I type a simple comment, add a tag (notice the tag auto-completion as I type), and rate it. This will help me later when I compare all of the other lamps I find on the Web (seriously, developers shop for lamps on the Internet ALL the time).
5. Finally, I click publish, and I'm all finished. Notice how I never need to leave the page I'm on while Dotting -- you can even Dot while watching the Dotting video demo (<keanu>whoa</keanu>).

This can be simplified even further -- if you'll allow me to borrow the Pavlovian phrase of an ex-co-worker: "Push button, get banana chip". Enough said. -Derek Slager