Widgenie

Widgenie is a free data visualization tool which will benefit most non tech people. It’s an easy way to publish data online without learning how to code. The data that I am referring to are charts and graphs. If you are familiar with Microsoft Excel then you probably know that it’s very easy to produce graphs using the software. Just place in the data and you can easily make a visual representation using that data in just a click or two. The question is how to get it online?


For starters, you need to have an account in order to use the service so you have to register first. You will need an existing Excel File (XLS) or a CSV (Comma-Separated-Values) file. What Wigenie does is convert those data files into a visually rich widget for you to easily share and publish online.

How to Use:

To create a widget, choose a file format to upload. You can choose to upload an Excel file or a CSV file. After uploading, name your data file and also write a short description about the data. This will be useful once you have created several widgets in your Wdigenie account. You can edit the columns and choose a data type for each one. You can also remove columns that you do not wish to appear in the widget.

When you’re done with all that, you can select a widget format you wish to use. You can choose Tabular, Animated Line Chart, Animated Bar Chart, Animated Area Chart, Animated Pie Chart, and a Text Cloud Widget. Upon choosing which format you want to use, Widgenie will bring you the widget design phase where you can just drag and drop the columns from your data to the X and Y axis of the graph. In the layout tab, you can define your X and Y axis and change the Chart orientation along with the height and width of your widget. You can also include a “Grab Me” sharing link to your widget. This will let other people use your graph and place it in their own sites.

The final step is to get the embed code and place it in your blogs or websites. You can also quick publish the widget in your Blogger, Facebook and iGoogle accounts. A public link to your widget is also available for email purposes.

A few tips when uploading a data file.

1.All data must be contained in the first sheet of the workbook. I you have multiple sheets in your workbook, Widgenie will use the 1st sheet and the rest will be discarded.

2.The sheet should contain only the data and column headers. Titles, notes and other text outside of the data table will impede the upload.

3.The maximum file size that you can upload is only 2MB.

4.Column headers are recommended and cannot start with number or contain punctuation or spaces. These characters will automatically be removed.

5.Empty rows will also be removed during the upload.

6.Each column of data should have the same data type (ie: strings, dates, or integers).

Widgenie can prove to be a useful tool when it comes sharing your Excel or CSV data online. It’s very easy to use and consumes less time. They also have an analytics feature where you can track your widget’s number of unique views and visits. It also provides blog and website visitors with a new experience in viewing and sharing data.

Coming soon: Online data feeds support for Google Docs and Amazon's Simple DB.

Check out their tutorial video: