Google released yesterday a new service that allows Web publishers to insert small, JavaScript-based widgets into their blog or Web site.
There are 1,220 Google Gadgets for your Web page, most of which were already available for inclusion in Google homepage and Google Desktop. Example gadgets include Google Video, maps, weather and time.
Google follows several smaller “Web 2.0”-ish companies, such as WidgetBox, Six Apart and Technorati, into the syndicated widget space. The widgets are part of a trend at Google of focusing on the mashup ethic, says Marshall Kirkpatrick of Techcrunch. And according to Pete Cashmore at Mashable, the widgets won’t work on social networking sites like MySpace because they’re JavaScript-based.
Richard McManus lists his favorite widgets here.