What is a widget and what does it do in a blog?

Question

I am new to the internet and started a blog, and have confusion to what these are for and why I need them.

Thanks for some clarification!!

Answer 1

A widget is anything that can be embedded within a page of HTML, i.e. a web page. A widget adds some content to that page that is not static. Generally widgets are third party originated, though they can be home made. Widgets are also known as modules, snippets, and plug-ins.

For example of Widgets you can see this blog's right side.

http://hair-weaving.blogspot.com/

Answer 2

widget you can say it plugins. you can download it for increasing usability of your blog.

Answer 3

Let me explain it in a simpler way. Think of your blog as a wall. A blank wall. What can you do to increase the attractiveness of this wall, and make it more usable? You'd hang pictures, insert wall cabinets and so on right? Well, these accessories are called widgets.

You can put them on your blog, anywhere you want. (usually, on the sidebar) And give your blog more functionality and an eye-candy design.

For an instance, in this blog: http://www.rockfuse.com/blog/ the "Popular Posts", "Recent Posts", "Top Commentators" are widgets in the right sidebar. In a blog, you can easily insert these widgets along the sidebar depending on the platform that you use (Wordpress, Blogger, TypePad).

To increase your functionality more, you can use tabbed widgets, which can save you a lot of space in your blog. Such a method is mentioned here: http://www.rockfuse.com/blog/add-sidebar...