Now you can install WordPress Widgets to your WordPress blogging platform and easily add more functionality to your blog. It is a brand new development which promises to enhance your WordPress blog like never before.

By installing the Widgets plugin by Automattic (download zip or svn) and using a widget-ready theme, you can bring the popular customization feature from WordPress.com to your very own, hosted WordPress installation. (WordPress 2.0 required). It is hoped that future versions of WordPress will have built in widgets functionality and the plugin might not be required.

Widgetizing Themes is fun. If you have basic PHP editing skills, then you can update any theme for use with widgets in a few minutes, depending on complexity of the WordPress theme. Widgets will add new functionality to your blog features and make it stand out among common blogs. Widgets can be customized or developed to perform tasks which can be easily integrated with known WordPress features.

WordPress Widgets API (Application Programming Interface) includes WordPress theme authors, plug-in authors and anyone who would like to write a stand-alone widget assuming you have a basic understanding of PHP scripting.