I recently saw this widget, which is only for iChat and doesn't seem to be very far along in the development process, but I immediately lusted after it. It seems like a good use of the Dashboard, as opposed to replicating the entire buddy list, which is the only widget idea I've seen mentioned on these forums. I think it'd be fabulous to be able to close (or heck, even keep open) by contact list, but by quickly glancing at the Dashboard see the status of the few contacts I care about the most.
Anyway, just throwing this out there in case someone much smarter than myself wants to tackle it. You'd be my hero(ine) for ever and ever!
