Two New Flu Widgets Released

CDC's National Center for Health Marketing (NCHM), in collaboration with the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), released two new widgets for the 2008–2009 Seasonal Flu Vaccination campaign.

CDC.gov widgets are small applications that display selected CDC-featured content directly on your organization's Web page. Once the widget code has been downloaded to your Web site, there is no technical maintenance. CDC.gov will update the content automatically. Adding a CDC.gov widget to your page means that you will have up-to-date, credible health and safety content in your favorite spaces—no more searching or browsing!

• CDC RSS Widget: Keep up to date on the latest information about seasonal flu through regular updates from CDC. This widget will read content from CDC RSS feeds and updated CDC seasonal flu content postings will automatically be displayed in the CDC RSS widget.
• CDC Flu Map Widget: Keep abreast of the current seasonal flu activity by state as it progresses week to week throughout the flu season. Information in this widget is automatically updated weekly through the flu season from October through May.

To add a widget to your organization's Web site, visit www.cdc.gov/widgets for instructions.

NCHM and NCIRD are also hosting two upcoming webinars for bloggers. Both will include valuable strategies for shaping messages about the flu and flu vaccine for blogs, interactive media tools for bloggers, and an opportunity to interact with a CDC flu expert.

• "Flu Messages" Webinar for Healthcare Provider bloggers
  Tuesday, December 2, 2008, 12:00-1:00 pm EST
• "Flu Messages" Webinar for Mommy bloggers
  Tuesday, December 2, 2008, 2:00-3:00 pm EST

Please contact Holli Seitz (Hseitz@cdc.gov) if you or someone you know is interested in participating.