What are widgets?
There are lots of fun online tools that you can use and then also add to your blog. For example, online video is quite popular these days and there are widgets that allow you to pull your favorite online videos into your personal blogs or sites.

There are widgets that allow you to share your personal interests with the world, such as the widgets for comics, games, weather, maps, etc. I'm a big fan of the TV show Heroes and did a search on Heroes widget, and yup I found one and added it to my blog - http://juliaparra.blogspot.com.

Then there are widgets whose express purpose is to be added to a blog or site such as the Voki tool we added to the RETAzens Blog.

With some experimentation, you can find the right widgets for your blogs, sites, and CMS/LMS. I successfully added Voki, BubbleGuru, and Flixn to my WebCT course.

Widget Resources
Why Should You Care About Widgets?
Newsweek: The Year of the Widget?
2007: The year of the widget?
Read/Write Web on Widgets
Widgipedia
Google Widgets
WidgetBox
YourMinis

From the New York Times Article - Some Bling for Your Blog
Ed Anuff, a co-founder of Widgetbox.com, divides widgets into three categories. “One is self-expression widgets, like photo galleries, games or YouTube videos that you like,” he said. The second category includes widgets that generate revenue for a blogger, like a box that displays auctions from a particular eBay category, or a blogger’s favorite DVDs from Amazon.com. The third category, Mr. Anuff said, encompasses “site-enhancement widgets, like discussion forums, news feeds or a guest book, which provide better utility for your Web site.” Widgetbox is a site begun in September that collects widgets, spotlighting the newest and most popular ones; it offers more than 500 widgets.