Are content blocks a standard component of vB ?

[kevinh]

Try to choose a suitable commercial (read:stable) forum product and vBulletin is on my short list.

I have seen some sites with content blocks (table cells) to the right or left of the forum list and I need to know if these are a standard component or add-on or if someone has modded vB to achieve this ?

Like the blocks on the lhs of this site http://www.vbulletin.com/ and on some other sites which use them for ads.

Assuming they are part of vB are there any resrictions on what you can do with them?
For example could you put some code in there to display an RSS feed from another site?

Thanks,
kevin