As we discussed in Raising the Bar, a branded toolbar is a great way to keep your content in front of readers, even if they’re browsing other sites. However, when you’re competing with the likes of Google, MySpace, and Digg, you may need to sacrifice some browser real estate to create a stronger content offering.

Conduit (the toolbar builder we discussed in Raising the Bar) just unveiled Conduit Open, a component marketplace (i.e. feeds, applications, custom content) for your Conduit toolbar.   Conduit Open lets you partner with other content providers to cross-promote goods.   The idea being:  I make my content available for use on your toolbar; you make your content available for use on my toolbar; we both win.   There’s a wide variety of components to choose from in the marketplace, including:

• WikiAnswers
• Hulu
• YouTube
• Twitter
• Digg
• Google Talk
• Netflix
• CNN
• Fox News
• And more

You can add and edit components with a single mouse click, changing icons and text to suit your needs.

We designed our original toolbar to strictly promote feed growth!, but the addition of a Twitter widget, YouTube search, and Mashable RSS feed adds value for our readers.  These are resources they would use and enjoy anyway.  By adding them to the mix, we’re increasing our own toolbar’s chance for long-term adoption.

Conduit remains a free resource for white label toolbars, so if you didn’t create one the first time around, give it a try.  You can also download the new and improved feed growth toolbar here.