Five Questions is where I talk to bloggers about their projects and some of the other things they are doing. I ask {Q}uestions, and hopefully get some {A}nswers!

{Q} So what is a Romlet, and what inspired its creation?

{A} Romlet is an easy and visually appealing way to show who is referring traffic to you right on your website. Romlet was created mainly for what we think is the best of reasons: because we wanted to use it ourselves!

It came about really as a response to frustration with having both too many blog widgets and not enough functionality on ones we had.

{Q} Another widget hey - what makes this one special?

{A} This widget addresses a variety of needs in one - reducing the chaotic “widget clutter” that can destroy the design of a site. It saves site owners time spent logging into analytics accounts.

It is also a way to other site owners to send you traffic, and reward them when they do. It is highly customizable and thus visually adaptable to any website, unlike many widgets with few options for changing size, shape or the nature of the information displayed.

{Q} The Romlet partly allows bloggers to brag, and show off their success. How about those, ahem, who have little to boast about?

{A} This is a very common question we get asked. Fortunately, there are two extremely simple ways to still show off one’s referrers even if a site is fairly new and low-traffic.

Users can either set their widget expiration to longer ( e.g. 7 days instead of 1) so that the numbers shown are higher, or they can use the favicon-only widget which doesn’t show any statistics at all.

{Q} Aside from “bragging”, what else can the Romlet do?

{A} We’ve actually discovered that, though it is nice to show off referrers, the widget is even more useful for other things. For example, Romlet provides an extremely handy on-site way to see if you have a new traffic source.

I, for one, go to that traffic source when I see it to check it out. If I appreciate the link and the context it is in I often submit the referrer’s sites to social networks as a “thank you” for linking to me. This also indirectly benefits me with secondary traffic.

{Q} What was the biggest challenge involved in developing the Romlet?

{A} The hardest part about developing Romlet has been, strangely enough, a lack of critical feedback. Most users simply install it on their site, maybe write something about it, and that’s that.

We’re working right now on getting a blog started in order to encourage more feedback and other forms of interaction.

Over the longer term, we’re also hoping to develop more functions, options, and community around the widget, but we want Romlet users to help us decide the future of the widget and community!

Thanks Craig!