Weather information may not be the most content-rich of items you can add to your blog (not to mention being often the butt of jokes about small talk). But let’s face it, each of us is concerned by the weather in our own locale. It’s one of those things we take for granted, say, when it’s a clear sunny day. But then when you’re suddenly caught under an unexpected heavy downpour while walking down the street, I’m pretty sure you would mind.
Most widget systems, such as OS X Dashboard, Google desktop gadgets, Yahoo! widget engine, Windows Vista widgets, and the like, have their own weather widgets included by default. So why should your blog not have a weather widget?
Earlier this month, iBegin introduced iBegin Weather, along with a branding-free weather widget that can be installed on blogs and websites for as long as you have access to your theme’s code (you need to paste some javascript). The widget is highly customizable in terms of look, information included, and even the link back to iBegin is optional.
Aside from being able to present useful information, Ahmed Farooq of iBegin also lauds the link-building potential of their releasing such a widget, even though the widget’s being branding-free essentially means users could opt not to link back to iBegin.
The widget is limited to US and Canadian cities, for now. Also, I wonder how soon iBegin or a third party can convert this into an actual widget/plugin for WordPress and other blog systems (meaning one you can drag and drop into your sidebar to install).
