In our opinion, we don’t think the SpringWidgets widget is appealing at a width less than 250 pixels.

But… For use on sites like MySpace or Stickam, the branding feature with SpringWidgets/Feedburner is something we do like and the sidebars tend to be wider on those sites.

Of course there are other options too, depending on your needs and platform. There are WordPress plugins and there is also Grazr, among others. Each option has its pros and cons.

I’ve just posted an answer on Widgetoko for the “why use an RSS widget” question

We’ve had a lot of experience with RSS feed widgets and turns out people love them! the key to a successful RSS feed widget is to make it small enough to fit sidebars (the SpringWidgets widget is too large to be useful on most sidebars). We’ve got tons of feedback about this from our users and customers.