Google has begun a grant-awarding project to incentivize the development and refinement process for gadgets that appear on personalized home pages, reports John Battelle's Search Blog.

Google Gadget Ventures seeks to reward those who created useful and popular gadgets. Grants of $5,000 are available to those who have already created popular gadgets listed in Google's directory.

For the more ambitious, grants of $100,000 are available to those who submit a plan to build a business around a gadget they've created.

Details on gadget and business plan submission can be found at http://www.google.com/gadgetventures/.