The limited trial of the BBC Football Gossip widget has ended.

You will no longer be able to see or use the BBC Football Gossip widget on the BBC Football Gossip pages. It will also no longer be available on any sites you may have posted it to - for example: Google, Facebook, Hi5, Blogger, WordPress or Orkut.

We would like to extend our warm thanks to the many users who participated in the trial, particularly those who provided detailed feedback via the feedback form. Thank you very much for your comments and support. Your feedback has been taken into account when making decisions on the future of the BBC Football Gossip widget.

Trial conclusions:

The widget trial comprised three main features:

1) A flash-based widget as the 'container' for viewing the feeds

2) A regularly updated feed of links to football gossip news breaking from major daily newspapers and related football sources. This was paired with an equivalent football news feed provided by the BBC

3) The ability to 'embed' and 'share' the content by posting the widget to, for example, an iGoogle or Facebook account

The conclusions from the trial indicated strong support for football gossip news feeds from major football websites.

We also received some really useful comments on accessibility, interface and navigation design.

There was limited use of the 'embed' and 'share' features; more work will be required if this was to roll out to production in due course.

Trial recommendations:

Although the trial has generally been very well received, we have decided we need to do some more work on improving the design, accessibility and performance of the widget.

It would also benefit from a review of the 'embed' and 'share' features and how well integrated they are with the overall functional design.

The trial is therefore being concluded at this time. This will enable us to continue to evaluate the technology platforms and design criteria for widget production and to apply a common set of standards for full production-grade widgets.

In the meantime however, we will continue to add direct links to the most relevant stories on other websites each day.

Additional feedback:

If you have any additional feedback on the trial, please use the feedback form below.

And take a look at bbc.co.uk/widgets to check out some of the latest available widgets from the BBC.

Once, again many thanks for your support during the trial.

BBC Future Media & Technology

The BBC may edit your comments and not all emails will be published. Your comments may be published on any BBC media worldwide.

Trial background:

Links to other websites offer access to more detailed information, the chance to compare sources or check out a different perspective on the same story.

In early 2009, the BBC carried out a limited trial of some enhancements to the existing Football Gossip column, one of the most popular pages on BBC Sport.

The trial's purpose was to gather some statistical information on service performance, usage plus some feedback from our users on the proposed feature set. The trial lasted approximately three months.

During the trial, football fans were able to track football news from the BBC feed as well as football news, gossip and speculation from other popular sports news websites all presented in one easy to use 'widget'.

The widget also enabled users to share these features with friends or even post the widget to a favourite blog or profile page including popular search engines and social media platforms like Google and Facebook.

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