Widget building is big business these days. Not only are businesses looking for ways to engage their customers virally online, but others are cashing in on the frenzy. Sprout Inc. recently announced that they are no longer going to offer free services, but others have taken their place…and they just might be better.

iWidgets is a newish service I stumbled upon recently. Founded by Peter Yared and Casey Sackett and headquartered in San Francisco, the company offers widget building services on crack. Couple that with advertising services and you have a powerhouse to be reckoned with.

A long list of features makes iWidgets a viable resource for the casual blogger as well as enterprise level business. Easy, painless registration is all it takes to start building your viral future.

Features of iWidgets

• Multimedia Content Adding – Add nearly any type of content from text to video to sound and more
• Tagging Allowed – Add tags to your widgets
• Viral Components – Share and Grab This components allow for viral spreading of your widget campaign
• Google Analytics – Track your widgets with analytics
• Multiple Views – Create multiple views of your widget for a full level user experience
• Monetization and Advertising – Monetize your widgets with ads or advertise your own business (advertising your own ads is not a free service)

Despite Sprout Inc.’s announcement to go fully for profit, they are still a wonderful service and have been rated very highly by a variety of publications and news media. But iWidgets seems to have everything that Sprout Inc. offers in their SproutBuilder and portions of what they offer in their SproutMixer.

iWidgets also seems to push the idea of spreading content and it may have something to do with the fact that their service is still free…maybe the old share and share alike idea. Will they end up charging and potentially harming relationships with existing users? Sprout ran into some issues when they made their announcement.

Regardless whether those at iWidgets decide to start charging for their service or not they have my vote for the widget building service of today. Check out the video below for more.

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