Widgetbox has rolled out a new and fun widget-creation tool for blog readers and creators to make their own widgets called Blidgets. A typical Blidget pulls the latest stories or posts from your blog and presents it in a small, customizable widget. All it needs from you is a URL or an RSS feed, and the Blidget maker takes care of the rest. You can even set the Blidget to show pictures and text from a blog's posts. It's all very simple and easy to set up.
When you're done with your Blidget, you can publish it and use Widgetbox's metrics (which we covered in December) to see how and where your Widget is being used, with easy-to-understand statistics. You can also embed it anywhere on your Web site or your blog.
For power users, there are some things left to be desired with the Blidget maker. Images are a bit on the large side, which takes away from the otherwise clean interface. Also, your chosen logo image can't be moved, which is a shame because it would look slick if you could seat it next to the title text. There are also only two sizes to choose from, narrow and square. I would have liked to see a short and wide version also. If you want to change things like that and have some technical savvy, you can always use a widget-creation tool such as Apple's Dashcode or use your favorite text editor (Yahoo Widgets has a good guide here).
You can check out the Webware Blidget here.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
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