NBC Universal Incorporated has announced plans to make some of its television programming available as widgets that can be added to blogs, personal home pages, wikis and social networking sites.  To accomplish this, NBC will be using tools from Clearspring Technologies Incorporated.  Initially, NBC will be offering content from the shows "Dateline", "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and the "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" as well as sports content from the iVillage.com unit.

Over time, NBC plans to offer more in terms of content and customization options to users.  This move comes on the heels of rival CBS announcing its move into the online social networking with the purchase of Last.fm, a social music listening system, and News Corp's (parent company to Fox Television) earlier purchase this year of social networking king, MySpace.