Fidgeting With Widgets
If your blog needs a little pick-me-up, you could try a new theme, or you might consider using widgets. SpringWidgets and Widgetbox can help you with that.
What’s a widget? It’s something that you can plug into your blog or desktop that can do things like: deliver information to you or your readers, allow you to chat with others, stay on top of stocks, watch a tree grow. Yes, watch a tree grow (check out Arbor Day on SpringWidgets). Practically anything goes when it comes to widgets, so you’re sure to find something that interests you.
Their true impact is that these widgets can help people deliver information effortlessly to other like-minded individuals. That means, as bloggers, you can make your blog’s content as a widget of its own with one of these services and offer it to others to put on their blog.
Each of these sites offer galleries making it easy to search for things that interest you. I can’t make a fair comparison as to the number of categories between these two sites as they’re organized a little differently, but suffice it to say, there’s quite an offering to be found any direction you take.
One difference between the two is that SpringWidgets does offer their widgets for blogs AND your desktop.
Some friendly advice: choose wisely. It’s easy to get carried away with all that these sites have to offer, so don’t sacrifice a fast loading blog with too many widgets. Also, there’s no substitute for good content, so keep writing. 
[tags]widgets,blogging,blogs[/tags]
Popularity: 4% [?]
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About the Author: Mark Sierra is an online entrepreneur and web publisher. As the owner of StarFrost Media, he continues to add blogs and products to his online portfolio designed to help inform readers on software and blogging, teach them to be more productive, and even learn how to make money online.
Mike | May 30, 2007 | Reply
I actually have 19 subscribers for my Gummy widget on Widgetbox last time I checked
They really help to bring in traffic.
My Alexa score on the comic site improved by about 300,000 in the last two days. I don’t know if I can attribute it all to the widget, but it’s certainly not hurting.
Mark | May 31, 2007 | Reply
Hey, I was just reading your post about your latest post when I got notified of this comment. Looks like you’re doing pretty well for yourself.
I had a widget for my other blog made on Widgetbox, but haven’t checked its popularity.
Tay | May 31, 2007 | Reply
Great post, Mark. I’d known about Widgetbox but not about SpringWidgets. I got the growing tree widget for my global warming and earth blog. It’s really neat!
Tay | May 31, 2007 | Reply
All right, hmm. The Arbor Day widget does not seem to work on my blog. It shows up as a big blank space when I entered the code into the post. So I went back to SpringWidgets and this time actually clicked ‘add to Blogger as blog post’. I entered my email and password, and it said ‘String could not be parsed as XML’. I wish it would work! It would be perfect for my global warming & earth blog.
Mark | May 31, 2007 | Reply
I’m sorry to hear that. There was a time I had a problem with a widget WidgetBox was offering and they helped me out. Perhaps you’ll find the hospitality at SpringWidgets.
Rob Dunn | Jun 1, 2007 | Reply
I have Spring Widgets on my site for a couple of the blogs that are within my network (I couldn’t think of anything else to do with it as of yet…)!
You’re right though, it is very easy to get carried away, and for me, more than one widget on my site is probably too many!
Mark | Jun 1, 2007 | Reply
Hey Rob - yeah, there are some really cool ones available.