I’ve added a couple of sample widgets to the sidebar. The first widget is an Amazon Browser. Type in whatever query you want and hit Enter. You can change the search index by clicking on the magnifying glass and for all indices but “All”, you can specify a specific sort order. Additionally, move the scroll bar to see how the widget can dynamically load results. The second widget is a Amazon “list” widget. It can be used to load a variety of lists – Wish Lists, Wedding or Baby Registries, canned searches, similarity searches, etc.

Widgets should of course be easy to add to your site and easy to configure to your individual taste. As such, both Amazon widgets already have a number of configurable options, such as whether to show items details or what the widget title should be. These options are currently settable via the URL and undocumented. I’m looking now into registering the widgets at sites like Widgetbox to make adding a widget to your blog/web site very easy.

Neither widget is groundbreaking, but at this early stage we’re aiming for “functional” and maybe “cute.” The Amazon widget is a great first widget to learn client-side web app basics and build out various infrastructure pieces. Once some of the building blocks are in place, the intent is to move on to more interesting widgets.