The latest tips and news from the Blogger team
Welcome AOL Journals Users!
October 27, 2008
As some of you might know, AOL has recently decided to sunset its
AOL Journals
service. To help Journals users continue to share their thoughts online, Blogger has built a simple
migration tool
to move an AOL Journal to Blogger. We'd like to welcome our new Blogger users to the community and are looking forward to hearing what they have to say!
We've been hard at work here at Blogger and have added a number of new features in the past few months. If you're a Journals user who wants to explore our features, or even if you're already a Blogger user but you want to see what's new, check out our
features page
. Over in our
user group
you can share your blog with others or find new blogs to
follow
. If you're still hungry for more blogs, the Blogger team regularly posts interesting and noteworthy Blogger-powered blogs at
Blogs of Note
.
Below are some more resources for new Journals users. Welcome again!
Take a Tour
Help Resources
User Group
Commenting made easier
October 22, 2008
Today we’re bringing the
embedded comment form
out of
Blogger in draft
and making it easily available to everyone. This feature puts the comment form at the bottom of each post page, below the comments, instead of on the separate, Blogger-styled page.
The embedded comment form is more convenient for your readers because they can use it to
post a comment immediately
, without clicking over to a different page. It also looks better, since it
matches your blog’s style and colors
.
If you’re logged in to Blogger with your Google Account, you can also subscribe to comments via email by clicking the “Subscribe” link. Unlike with the full page comment form, you don’t need to post a comment to subscribe.
To enable the embedded comment form for your blog, go to the
Settings > Comments
page and look for the
Comment Form Placement
setting. Change it to
Embedded below post
, save your settings, and go check out a post to see the new form in action.
The embedded comment form works on both Classic and Layouts templates, though if you’re using a heavily-customized Layouts template you may need to reset your widget templates before the embedded comment form will appear.
We think that the embedded comment form is a big improvement, so we’ve made it the default setting for all new blogs.
Happy commenting!
Update, 10/23:
We regret that this feature is being enabled for some existing blogs that didn’t specifically enable it. We are working to undo that, but in the meantime if you see this on your blog and don’t want it, go to
Settings > Commenting
and change Comment Form Placement to either “Full page” or “Pop-up window.”
Publish to your Blogger blog from iGoogle
October 22, 2008
Today, we’re releasing our
Blogger Post Gadget
for
iGoogle
. Now you can edit and publish posts directly from your custom iGoogle homepage, making it even easier to share your thoughts with the world.
To get started, just click that “+
Google
” button to have the Blogger Post Gadget added to your iGoogle page.
You can use HTML in the text box, but if you want more rich text editing — for example, to upload a photo — just click “Save Draft” and you’ll get a link to edit the post in the full Blogger post editor.
Blogger Following for All
September 11, 2008
A few posts ago we let you know about
Blogger Following
. The feature lets readers publicly subscribe to your blog (so you know who's reading) and adds a Reading List to your Blogger Dashboard so readers can stay updated with the blogs they follow.
Now it's available to
all
users in English. We'll keep you updated about when we launch it in Blogger's other languages.
To learn more about Following, read the
Blogger Buzz Post
or the
Google Blog Post
.
New stuff from the Picasa folks
September 02, 2008
For more than a year, you have been able to view all the photos you've uploaded to your blog in
Picasa Web Albums
. It's been good -- having a dedicated photo management interface comes in handy when you want to do things like embed Blogger photos elsewhere on the web, order prints, create slideshows, and so on.
Today, Picasa Web Albums has undergone a significant redesign, and is launching a slew of new features to help you better organize and enjoy your photos, including all of your Blogger Photos. Along with a much-refined interface, there's a powerful new '
name tags
' feature that helps organize your photo collection based on who's in each picture. For fun, check out the new
Explore page
, or take a look at the Recent Photos stream (unabashedly inspired by
Blogger Play
).
Oh, and one more thing: If you use
Picasa
(the client software) to edit and organize all the photos on your PC, we're happy to report that Picasa's venerable '
BlogThis!
' button still sits front-and-center in the next generation of Picasa software, which also launches today as
Picasa 3 (beta)
. If you've never tried it before, now's a great time to start -- Picasa 3 includes plenty of new
photo-editing
goodies
that can make your blog's pictures look better, like a powerful retouch tool, greatly revamped photo-collage and slideshow creators, simple video editing, desktop/web sync, and more. To learn more, swing by the
Google Photos blog
.
Show off your Followers
August 27, 2008
Would you like to know who enjoys reading your blog? Or stay updated with your favorite blogs right from your Blogger dashboard?
You can do those things and more with Blogger’s new
Following
feature.
By following your blog, your readers tell you and the world th
at they’re a fan of what you post. Your Dashboard now sho
ws you how many followers each of your blogs has. With a click on the Followers icon, you can browse your followers, see what
blogs they write, and read the other blogs they’re following.
Now that you know who your Followers are,
you can show them off by adding the Followers gadget to your blog’s sidebar
. From the
“Lay
out | Page Elements” tab, click “Add a Gadget” and select “Followers” from the gadgets list. The Followers gadget shows the profile pictures of your followers and gives your readers a “Follow This Blog” link to join up, too.
Your followers can stay updated with your blog with the
Reading List
that we’ve added to the Blogger Dashboard. The
Blogs I’m Following
tab automatically shows the latest posts from all the blogs you follow. You can follow any blog from your reading list, even blogs that haven’t added the Followers widget or aren’t hosted on Blogger. Just click the “Add” button and type in the blog’s URL.
If you’re a
Google Reader
user, you’ll now see a special folder in Reader
called “Blogs I’m Following,” full of the subscriptions for all of the blogs you follow. You can follow blogs you’ve subscribed to in Reader, too: From the Reading List on your Blogger Dashboard, click “Add,” then “Import from Google Reader.”
And.... there's more to come! We are also in the process of integrating with
Google Friend Connect
so you can give your readers more engaging social features.
For more details about what we've launched, check out the help articles here:
What is Following?
How do I add the Followers gadget to my blog?
How do I use the Blogger Reading List?
Following a Blog Publicly vs. Anonymously
Updates and Bug Fixes for August 27th
August 27, 2008
The big news for this release is
following
, but we’ve snuck a few other fixes in since
last time
:
As
reported on Blogger Buster
(and elsewhere), the
3rd party Add Widget API
was broken. It has been fixed.
The new button style appears clickable in all browers.
The Blog List widget can show thumbnails specified in Media RSS feeds.
Atom feeds now include the blog’s description as the
<subtitle>
element.
Updates and Bug Fixes for August 14th
August 14, 2008
We’ve added a few new features and things in today’s release:
There’s a
new look for the Blogger Dashboard
, which we think you’ll find more attractive and functional. If you have a ton of blogs (as we do) try out the “hide” and “show all” links to help manage the list.
Google Gadgets in your Layouts blog can now
set their height automatically
(if the gadget author supports it). Read more about
adding Google Gadgets to your blog
.
AdSense page elements can now optionally have image ads. We’ve found image ads have a higher click-through rate, so you might get more money if you turn them on.
We
wrote up a
Features page
to help you keep track of everything you can do with Blogger. Take a look and see if you’ve been missing out on something cool.
The Flag Blog button in the Blogger navbar now pops up a window for you to tell us why you think the blog violates our terms of service. Flag Blog is always handled exclusively by human reviewers,
not
the automated spam locking system, so this information will better help them decide what, if any, action should be taken.
And also fixed some bugs, including:
Fixed Moto template header overlap in IE7.
Blocked the /feedReaderJson URL from web crawlers, to reduce 404s in Webmaster Tools.
Increased cacheability of CSS and JavaScript throughout Blogger, for faster page loads.
Button style and layout improvements throughout Blogger.
Spice Up Your Blog with Google Gadgets!
August 11, 2008
Fresh out of Blogger's own
testing ground
,
Google Gadgets
have now been enabled for all layouts blogs. This new interface allows for the integration of iGoogle Gadgets directly into your sidebar, with an array of customization options for easy tweaking. Also built into Gadgets is our robust
Gadget Directory
, which lets you browse through thousands of coo
l gadge
ts and add them to your blog with a simple click of a button.
You can access Gadgets from your dashboard under the
Layout | Gadg
ets
tab (the tab formerly known as "Layout | Page Elements.")
Gadgets have built-in configuration for easy integration into your layout. All gadgets are automatically sized to match the width of your sidebar, and their height in pixels can be adjusted using the Gadget's built-in options. Our large list of Gadgets is constantly growing and evolving.
You can browse them all from our comprehensive Gadget Directory, which runs the gamut from
sports updates to site counters, and flash games to local information tickers. To bring up the Gadget Directory, just click
Add a Gadget
from your layout. Have an idea for a gadget that isn't listed? Then
build it
yourself! We are always on the lookout for great ideas, so please
submit
your own creation to the
iGoogle Gadget Directory
, and then let us know about it in our
Help Group
— we may just add it to our 'Featured Gadgets' Section.
Itching to get started? Have a look at our our help video below for some guidance on browsing, adding,
and customizing a gadget on your blog:
Blogger Babies
August 04, 2008
Babies are all the buzz at Blogger. Within the last few months we've had three new additions to the Blogger Team: Ryan, Aditya, and Haley. Although it'll probably be a few years before they start sounding off themselves, we get to post some cute pics of them now.
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