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"ShopIt has grown a bit since our last mention of the widget store-creation site, and it's got plans to grow even further.  It's teamed up with Netvibes to offer two distinctive modules for your personal start page.  The modules should be available in the coming weeks.  Timing is pretty important for a site like ShopIt, as it surely hopes to take advantage of the biggest shopping season of the year, so it better hurry up.  \nThe first widget is for searching and shopping purposes.  You'll be able to browse and shop through ShopIt stores directly from this widget, accessing the breadth of those retailers that have created ShopIt stores.  The second is for ShopIt users, and it actually lets you manage your store.  Check sales, item offers, stats, and notifications of messages from friends and clients.  You can also manage your inventory from this widget as well.  \nI find the second widget offering to be most handy, as I personally use start pages for business purposes\u2014task lists, email updates, upcoming projects and notes.  So if I can access the back-end of part of my business directly from a widget on Netvibes, then I'm appreciative of this level of integration.  What many developers and creators of business applications have found, however, is a hesitancy to offer such accessible widgets to users, for this very reason.  They're very accessible.  \nYes, Netvibes is a personal start page, but security measures can still create some resistance towards this end.  Not as much as I've seen towards Facebook applications of this sort, even if they are more like Zoho's business app on Facebook, which simply won't display personally accessible information on your profile for your friends to see.  You'll have to go to the application page in order to access it.  Some feel this defeats the purpose of enabling an application on Facebook, but I'm inclined to disagree, at least from a personal use standpoint. \nOther upcoming plans for ShopIt include the ability to download music and video purchases through the Netvibes shopping module as well.\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2007/11/29/shopit-netvibes-module/>