"Time Warner's AOL has acquired Goowy, San Diego-based flash widget startup for an undisclosed sum. Widgetized versions of AOL properties could be the next step for the dinosaur ISP."

I love a good widget, so I went to check out Goowy.

"Goowy, a tiny, six-employee outfit which currently has partnerships with Brightcove, Veoh, MTV, VH1, and Red Bull, hosts and syndicates widgets developed on its own yourminis platform."

Goowy offers 'yourminis' widgets and the 'goowy webtop'. The widget gallery isn't as big as some, but offers a nice variety. What I really like about the gallery is that you can actually test run each widget right on the site. The biggest surprises came first, when I went to download one... You can download it to a wide range of blog sites, embed the code in your own site, or even copy it to your Yahoo Widgets and it turns it into a yahoo widget. The second surprise was that you could edit, build, and convert widgets right on the site.

Example of embedded widget...

You can add the widgets to most of the popular blog sites and Vista Sidebar as well.

The webtop, and I'm not a huge fan of webtops, is clean and very user friendly. You can also test run this right on the website. After a few minutes of messing with it, I have a feeling I may be using it myself for a while.

If you're a widget addict you will like checking out this site. Of all the widget sites I have seen and tried, I think AOL made the right choice with this one.