Being a part of the web industry means that you have to keep up to date with all the current trends and make use of new features. With the release of Internet Explorer 8 came a new way of following website updates – Web Slices.

Though currently only supported by Internet Explorer 8, hopefully this will feed through into others such as Firefox, Safari and Opera.

Web Slices take a specified snippet of a web page and displays it within a 320px x 240px iframe within the browser (see example below). Much like an RSS feed, the web slice will be updated regularly to check for updates. If an update has occurred since you last checked, the item in your ‘Favourites’ bar will glow orange.

If a web page that you are currently viewing features a web slice, a green icon will appear in your toolbar on the top right. To subscribe to the web slice, and therefore add it to your ‘Favourites’ toolbar, click this green icon and you will be asked to confirm you wish to continue.

As a test, Creative Jar have added a web slice to the ‘News’ section on the home page (found in the left-hand column). So if you are with the times and have Internet Explorer 8, then check it out. If not, then why haven’t you updated?! But just in case you cannot, below is a screenshot of what we are talking about:

A very interesting feature for keeping up with certain areas of websites you frequently visit. Other examples include weather forecasts and lottery numbers.

And do not worry – a blog post will be following shortly with instructions on how you can add a web slice to your own page! :)