Google and Yahoo! Hand in Hand

Ta-daaa! Google and Yahoo! Sitting in a tree!...You know the following string of letters, so you'll have to guess what I mean. By the looks of it, Google's engineers are as skilled as Yahoo!'s ones, because they are rolling out about the same things at about the same time. Neat!

Well, not so neat because, while Google gadgets went to visit the Mac platform and decided to stay, Yahoo highlighted the support for Flash and HTML and the additions of some new partners to its widgets. The Flash and HTML support addition means that widget development won't only be familiar to web developers, but it will also support easier new applications, such as video, according to Nick Gonzales of TechCrunch.com.

"Today, we're very proud to reveal the fruits of months of hard work and kick-off a new era for Yahoo! Widgets with the brand-spanking-new widgets.yahoo.com. Much of the work in this release went into rebuilding (almost) the entire site from the ground up on top of Yahoo!'s powerful search, community, and personalization platforms. What that means to you is this is just the beginning - we have laid a solid foundation on which we can more rapidly innovate and deliver new features to improve your Yahoo! Widgets experience. But, that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of cool things for you to start enjoying today. Far from it, we think the new site is packed with quite a bit of awesome," the official Yahoo! widgets blog announced.

Over the next few months, the first obvious change that users will notice is the new look, due to the exploring of a visual refresh across the entire product suite. Now, the central focus of the site will be the Widget Gallery and searching on it has been simplified with the addition of a "Find Widgets" section, while on the opposite end a "Create Widgets" section has been created from scratch.

I just hope I don't get too attached to the widgets, because I know how addictive they can be… Fun time with widgets, that would be my show on TV and it could go on 24/7.