Widgetbox: Widgets For Your Blog

Widgetbox is a new website that is directory of web widgets.

Currently in private beta, Widgetbox makes it very easy to add widgets to your blog and also makes it easy to manage them.

Widgetbox manages how blogs retrieve the widget, which allows you to reconfigure your widget without editing the HTML on your blog (a real bonus). Widgetbox widgets are also future-proof: they have backwards compatibility built into them so that developers can add features and rearrange their service without disrupting existing users of the widget.

Currently, the site offers many widgets in the following categories: blogosphere, communication, fun & games, interests, information, media, money makers, and "other," which contains a few unclassified widgets.

In testing Widgetbox out for myself, I found it very easy to add a widget to my blog. So easy, in fact, it was kind of scary. I never even set up my blog info in my account profile, but I clicked "Subscribe" next to a widget, and darned if Widgetbox wasn't asking me which TypePad blog I wanted to add my widget to.

Anyway, Widgetbox is also working on tag aware widgets for smart blogs (in alpha). By putting a tag in blog post, you can make a widget use the info from the tag to display relevant content.

So, what widgets do you want to see? Keep in mind we're talking about web widgets here -- a web widget is a widget that's placed on a blog or web page, not a desktop widget, such as the ones provided by Apple, Yahoo, & Google.

Speaking of widgets, Joe also had widgets on the brain, and is warning us of widget overkill. Agreed there -- choose your widgets wisely!

Read more tech news at SarahInTampa.com!