I’ve made my cyber-pets available on Widgetbox. Widgetbox is, in their words, “an online directory of web widgets for blogs and other web pages.”
From a developer’s point of view, Widgetbox is great to work with. Creating or modifying a widget to work within Widgetbox’s system is pretty easy. The multi-step process wizard is very easy to understand, and they give you a lot of options. Your widget can be HTML and hosted by Widgetbox, or you can host the widget yourself (which is what I am doing) and still have it configurable at the Widgetbox site.
From an end-user’s point of view, acquiring and configuring widgets is quite straightforward and consistent. You collect widgets on “panels,” which are groups of widgets. You can then install the panel on your blog or website.
Widgetizing the pets was a lot easier than I had expected. As a counter-example, I’ve been looking to widgetize my pets for the Windows Live Spaces platform (they call them “gadgets” over there), but it doesn’t look nearly as straightforward.
Thumbs up :)