Think Different

I There are few things that people like to do more than give their opinion about a subject of interest to them – especially on the Web. This can be very useful for engaging your site’s visitors, measuring their interest in a topic, or just allowing them to express themselves. Web 2.0, and the advent of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), allow for the installation of polling widgets on your web site, making it easier than ever to take the pulse of your community. There are several different technologies you could use to build an interactive voting widget, but the end user needs to be considered carefully. For instance, you could use Ajax – but this approach can introduce issues with client-side compatibility. You could use Applets, but that’s not a popular choice at the moment – too many web surfers disable the Java VM in their browsers. A very good option, on the other hand, is Flash. Practically everyone has it installed – who hasn’t come across a link to YouTube at s...