Don't You Want a TechSoup Widget??

I just discovered this cute widget created a few months back by my co-worker Conor on our Web Production team. What's a widget? Well, I'm not talking about the Delta Airlines logo. Check out Wikipedia's info to learn more about Web widgets.

I hadn't noticed this handy dandy widget before today but I think it's super cute and would be a great addition to a variety of sites and blogs that cover nonprofit technology, software, consulting, marketing, security, or green IT.

Created on Widgetbox — an online tool that lets helps you create your very own widget — you can build, distribute, and track the widgets you create to see where they're being used around the Web. Your site visitors, blog readers, and fans can have their very own chunk of YOUR Web site that they can promote on theirs.

If you're not feeling inspired to create your own (or don't have a blog or other content you want to syndicate), you can find appropriate widgets for nearly any topic to post on your Web site to keep fresh, relevant content coming to your page or pages without having to create it all yourself. Easy as pie.

Once you find a widget you like (pick TechSoup! pick TechSoup!) you can grab easy code in Flash or JavaScript to plug into your blog tool or Web site. Otherwise, you click any one of the shortcut buttons to land it on your MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, WordPress, or TypePad site automatically. Love it! 

Jim and Anna, who run the GreenTech Initiative here at TechSoup, found one from Widgetbox that worked perfectly for their reduce paper usage campaign this month. They've got a groovy Eco-Calculator on their main campaign page that calculates how much water, waste, trees, CO2, and energy is saved by using recycled paper in print jobs instead of non-recycled.

I'm planning to take a few minutes to add our TechSoup widget to my Facebook and MySpace profiles today. Seems like a great and free way for me to get the word out to a broader community of readers without having to reinvent the wheel. Why not do the same for your nonprofit?