55-Alive! (www.55-Alive.com) is one of the top websites for baby boomers and those over age 50.  In addition to having access to several thousand articles, 55-Alive! Members can create a profile and blog, create and join groups (including Team 55-Alive!), start a photo gallery, and search for the best retirement communities and used RV’s.  55-Alive! Members can also join 55-Alive Romance!, where they can search for others with similar interests.

55-Alive! wanted to provide members with the ability to send and receive messages from other 55-Alive! members (including 55-Alive Romance! Members) from their desktop.  Additionally, 55-Alive! wanted to feature summaries of the most recent articles, with links to the full text of the articles, and links to the 55-Alive! “friends” that each member may have added to their profile.

We created a widget for 55-Alive! so that 55-Alive! members can login to their account from the widget, and send and receive messages from their desktop without having to first visit the 55-Alive! website.  We believe that this is the first widget built for the Yahoo! platform with this message functionality.

The 55-Alive! widget also provides members with the latest headlines and articles from 55-Alive!.  Through the widget, 55-Alive! members can preview a summary of the article (which is shown with any associated picture or graphic), and then can click on the link to go directly to the full article on the 55-Alive! website.

55-Alive! members can also see information about their friends through the 55-Alive widget.  When a friend’s name is clicked, the widget expands and shows 4 pictures that the friend has added, along with a brief profile or away message of their friend.