Putting the .5 in Yahoo! Widgets 4.5
So, what exactly is it that we've been cooking up here in Widgetland these last few months? In this version, we've got more detailed security disclosures to give users a better sense of what a Widget can do before it runs, a rearchitected core along with a full W3C-compliant Document Object Model (DOM), as well as support for Flash and HTML. What does all this mean? Basically, we're extending the platform to enable Widget authors to create richer and more powerful desktop Widgets (like ones that run video, w00t!). And at the same time, we're also making it even easier for people to use their existing skills (and maybe even some code) to create a desktop Widget on Yahoo!.

New Widgets to Love
We've also got a few cool new and improved Widgets, like our very own Yahoo! Finance Widget and Widgets from our friends at the NBA and RockYou. You will find these Widgets in our Widget Spotlight on the front page of the new Yahoo! Widget Gallery over the next few weeks. These partners share our vision of delivering compelling experiences to their audiences on the desktop, and we're very happy they've chosen our platform to do so.

Sharing the Widget Platform Love
We're also very pleased to announce integration with several leading Widget creation and distribution platforms. As announced at the Widget Summit a few weeks ago, the thousands of Widgets built using the Netvibes UWA will now be available on your desktop as Yahoo! Widgets from the Netvibes Ecosystem. Additionally, Clearspring is now including the option to add the many web Widgets they power, from partners like NBC Universal and Time, to your desktop as Yahoo! Widgets. And by the end of this year, MuseStorm will be supporting output to Yahoo! Widgets for their partners, like CBS and Universal Music Group, as part of their forthcoming platform release.