What is you first reaction when you encounter a blog that has a Flash clock, dynamic weather forecast, shoutbox with smileys, terror alert indicator, birthday countdown timer and tons of other bells-n-whistles ? You probably assume that the site is written by some non-serious teenager and leave the site as early as possible without subscribing.
While these third-party blog widgets or add-ons not just increase the page loading time, they also make your pages look ugly and immature. Why would someone want to see the current time on a blog when he can get easily get that information from his wrist or the Windows Taskbar.
Unfortunately, the ugliness of webpages is unlikely to vanish anytime soon. Infact it's bound to grow by leaps and bounds as Google today introduced Google Gadgets for webpages. It's a huge repository of widgets that anyone can embed in their blogs using simple HTML javascript.
I don't say that Google Gadgets are too bad for the health of your webpages - there are some exceptionally useful plugins like the del.icio.us Bookmarks widget or the Technorati Tracker - but the majority of them are useless and will not add any value to blogs or websites.
But as Google has made the entire process so simple and accessible, more and more bloggers are likely to incorporate Widgets in their blogs thinking they are cool which is unfortunately not the case.
Disclaimer: While we have also suggested some Website widgets in the past like the Human clock, Weather forecast or the IP Address Greeting widget, keep their use minimal else your site visitors will run away forever. If you like Google Widgets, put them on your personalized Google page and not on the public website.