Remember the lowly trading card? If you were a baseball fan, it was a great way to keep up with players, statistics, and just stay connected to the game. Oh, and remember, they were for trading. I’ll give you this Thurman Munson for your Hank Aaron. Widgets are just like that, but they can live anywhere on the web.

Thanks to Clearspring’s widget ad network, sites like NBA.com have figured out that these modern day trading cards (check out all of these NBA widgets) can help fans stay up to date . . . with just about anything - photo highlights, video highlights, statistics, standings, etc. No matter what you’re selling, it pays to think about how you might break up your site content and distribute it.

Also, by delivering both ads and widgets in one little package on sites like Facebook and MySpace, you’ll have the chance to make your widgets value go even further. Give it a try.