25 Great Blogger Widgets

Many people think that Blogger lacks in all of the extra goodies you can add to other platforms like WordPressWordPress reviews, but it simply isn’t true. By using widgets you can customize your blog as much as you like by just adding little snippets of code to the sidebars.

Allow users to talk to you via IM, see what your most popular posts are, or even read news from sites such as Mashable. With these 25 widgets, you can create an even more powerful way of communicating with your visitors, just make sure you don’t overload them with too many!

What are some of your favorite widgets for use on Blogger?

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Communications Widgets

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Google Talk - Give visitors the ability to talk to you via Google Talk directly from your blog sidebar.

Jaxtr - Create a widget that allows people to call you on the phone without revealing the phone number to them.

Meebo Me - Meebo Me will allow you to create a chat box that you can install on your Blogger page, giving you the chance to converse with visitors to your site.

Skype - The official Skype widget allows you to create various buttons that can show your current status and also allows people to just click it and give you a call.

Tag-Board - Allows you to add a real-time chat board to your blog that your visitors and you can use to converse.

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Social Widgets

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Delicious Linkrolls - Share your Delicious bookmarks with the world with this easy to install linkroll widget.

FriendFeed Widget - Share all of your FriendFeedFriendFeed reviews activity with the readers of your site.

Google Friend Connect - A makeshift social network that runs across any site that has installed Google Friend Connect. You can join a site, see the other members, play games and more.

LinkedInABox - LinkedInABox retrieves your LinkedIn profile to display on your blog, allowing people to look through things such as your specialties and experience.

MyBlogLog - If someone visits your blog that is also a member of MyBlogLog, their avatar and username will appear in the box. You can then click on any person to check out their profile on the service.

TwitterTwitter reviews - Add your Twitter stream to your blog and display anywhere from your last tweet to the last twenty. Also gives a link for people to be able to follow you.

Share on Facebook - A simple widget that allows your readers to share items from your blog on FacebookFacebook reviews.

SocialFeed - A miniature lifestreaming widget that broadcasts your activities on sites such as Twitter, StumbleUponStumbleUpon reviews, Last.fm and so on. Has several different skins you can choose from.

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Utility Widgets

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Add This - The popular social bookmarking button is available for Blogger accounts.

Easy Comments - This widget allows you to add commenting to any page of your site by placing the widget at the bottom of a page. Allows people to say if they liked the comment, includes comment threading and more.

Google Search - Add an AJAX powered GoogleGoogle reviews search box to your blog that you can allow to search the web and your blog, or even just restrict it to the contents of your site.

Popular Posts - This widget will take a look at your comments, up to the last 5,000, and generate a list of which posts had the most conversation around them.

Recent Comments - Display the most recent comments on your blog in this widget so that readers can join in the conversation.

Related Posts - Not so much a widget as a hack, this will give you the related post functionality that so many WordPress powered blogs use.

ShareThis - The highly customizable green button that ShareThis is known for can be added to your blog. Choose if you want it for social bookmarking, users emailing your posts and more.

Shout List Icons - Be the king (or queen) of social sharing with this widget that generates icons for over 30 social sites your blog can be added to.

Tag/Label Cloud - Gives you the ability to install a traditional tag cloud in your sidebar so people can see what you write about the most.

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Miscellaneous Widgets

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FlickrFlickr reviews - You can generate an HTML or Flash based badge of your photo stream to share your images with your visitors.

MashableMashable reviews - Yes, now you too can share the best web-related news on your blog with the Mashable widget.

Picasa Albums - Display your public Picasa albums in your blog sidebar with this handy widget.

50 More Beautiful Blogger Templates

Are you tired of looking at the default 16 templates that Blogger provides? We decided to search for some of the different-looking Blogger templates and found dozens of pretty creations, many inspired by themes from WordpressWordPress revieand other blog hosts. Below is a list of some select 2,3 and 4 column Blogger templates and themes sourced from across the blogosphere. Enjoy.

2-column templates

Andreas02 - Lots of tab links above the header. You can showcase the description of each active tab on the header.

Andreas08 - From the same author of the one above. The header is ready to be customised with your own picture.

Agua - A minimalistic clean template giving a pure white look.

Cajas - A blog tittle in a header that looks like the Blogger navbar and five menu links with multi-color backgrounds that tool the place of the traditional blog header.

Colibri - This reminds you of a garden, doesn’t it?

Dead - This one can be described as heavy metal/rock style - sinister and dark.

Eclipse - Another dark theme that brings werewolves to mind. An enchanting template for the dark souls.

Emire - Beautiful color combination but I wish there was more width for the post and the sidebar.

Hada-negra - A beautiful template - seductive and pleasing to the eyes.

Integral - The most striking visual details on this template are its rounded header and the green and sky-blue color combination.

iPhone - An elaborate Wordpress theme converted into Blogger. The large header button could probably be used better.

K2 - A popular Wordpress theme cloned for Blogger.

Minyx - A template that looks like an invitation card. Good use of space in the header.

Mushblue - Striking header color and works well with the dark background.

Natural - If you are the artistic kind, this one will be a feast for your eyes.

Neoneon - This is another unique design - rectangle sidebar boxes and spiral main body.

Red-White Web 2.0 - The buttons are nice. The search bar looks like a candy bar. The color combination is good. A template true to its name.

S08 - A blue color body on a darker blue background - you might have thought it won’t work? But here it is.

Vertical - As a the name suggests, this is a vertically designed clean template. You might want to throw in some more code and utilize the space below the blog title better.

Web 2.0 - A black and white template with a slight touch of blue color on the blog logo and the RSS feed.

3-column templates

Andreas4 - Another popular Wordpress template by Andreas cloned for Blogger. The template can be used as a bare bone structure for customization.

Autumn Grass - I like the color combination and the vertical menu links in the header. There is also sufficient space there for ads and videos.

Beautiful Red Apple - Another nice Wordpress theme converted into a Blogger template, has a 940px width frame, lots of space and customization possibilities.

Butterfly Magic - Another beautiful color combination, or shall we call it just another butterfly effect

Clean Elegant - Here’s one for all you Photoshop lovers, though we could do without the Adsense ad box, which spoils the whole meaning of the template.

Columnas - This theme’s peculiar design stands out from the rest of the templates in this list. Nice and clean.

Cultivado - Neat, floral, elegant - this one’s perfect for writing on life, philosophy, thoughts, poetry, love and the like.

Dark Ritual - A nice theme which somehow reminds us of Adams Family.

Erudite - A neat three-column Blogger template with the black color header and the orange color RSS icon gelling well.

Fluid Solution - Another cool black and white look.

Fresh Blogger Template - A fresh looking (it really is) green and blue theme. Great usability.

Garland - Drupal’s default look copied to Blogger. Soothing to the eyes, isn’t it?

Glow - If Hellboy or Flash Gordon wanted to blog, this is one template they might like.

Green Marinee - A long time favorite of many bloggers ported to Blogger. Great use of space, and a nice color combination.

Hemingway - A beautiful dark template - one column for the post body and three column on the footer.

Illacrimo - A beautiful clone for Blogger from the Wordpress theme Illacrimo, though I feel there should be a way to use more space currently taken by the date-display on the left of the screen.

Informativo - A similar template to the Columnas template above but with the header, for the less-unconventional bloggers who wants to stick with the proven.

Likewise v1.1 - A clean white template with one column for the post and with three column footer on a black background.

Magazine-Style - A nice template if you have a lot of information and widgets to display up front. It has got a three columns in the main area as well as in the footer area.

Minimalista - Another great port from Wordpress to Blogger.

Minyx 2.0 - A great template without pictures; good use of available space.

Pink Flower - A simple and elegant template with an image of, you guessed it, a pink flower.

Pizza - Don’t be dissuaded by the pizza theme if you are thinking of using this for a different subject blog. The template is highly customizable. The unique element in this template is the header which has been divided into two parts. You can display your blog logo or tittle on the left-side header box while using the other box for whatever you like.

Pro - A different-look search box, menu links above the blog title, and the graduated blue header background in a unique design makes this template unique.

Puerto - Somehow this template makes the post body look grand and majestic.

The Hobbit - If you are a fan of Tolkien, this one is for you.

Neo - A 3 column template that reloads in parts allowing faster reading and surfing.

4-column templates

Slined Mod 2.0 - Somehow, this one seems to fit a music/gaming theme best.

Neosapian - The contrast between black and red is striking. The second right-hand sidebar can be widen further and the red header can be used subtly for ads or to display more information. You decide whether to change the current header image or not

Qwilm - A simple looking great design that can be customized to a great extent.