Blogger is now surprisingly cool
I have had a love hate relation with Google’s Blogger service. I started blogging with it. It just stopped working for me one day and I moved on. But since then I have had minor brushes with the updates that Google added with time and it has now become pretty darn good!
Some recent decisions by Google has completely turned around the way guys like me looked at Blogger. Now it sports no advertisements… Google’s own adsense block is history and instead we have a cool looking bar that adds Google site search to the Blog. Other than that users get to surf around other Blogger based Blogs using the toolbar itself. Bloggers get to Blog using the BlogIt button.
And well, the new templates that were added to the Blogger services are some of the coolest skins available in free Blogging services. They now look really nice. Though it still lack some basic features like categories or community tools, it is very easy for a new user to start blogging. Google has certainly made it from something not so good into something really cool. And the fact that now users can use their own personal adsense codes… it is like paying people to Blog!
Contributed by: Sushubh, Publisher of Software news at Software Journal and Tech Consultant to SEJ.
I agree, I also first started using Blogger, then switched to WordPress because of the limitations of the old Blogger, dull templates and BlogSpot hosted pages not being properly permalinked/no comments.
However, after the Blogger Redux a couple of months ago, I took up using Blogger again for a personal blog and have had some fun with it.
The only downfall is since Blogger is HTML based, and requires FTP upload/rebuilding for posts and hosting on private domains, it can be a space eater.
Viva Blogger, Viva Blogging!
Although I like many of the new features, many of the templates, as well of all of Blogger Help, are unreadable on my imac running IE 4.0. so overall I am not exactly happy with all the changes.
Well, IE’s lack of support for CSS standards is very well known though Mac version of IE did much better. Version 4 is too old to be considering supporting in this generation of web designing. And considering Mac now has excellent browser in Safari… I had suggest you to stop using IE (Microsoft has stopped development of IE for Mac altogether) and rather shift to either Safari (if you have one of the recent version of Mac OS, Firefox/Camino or my favorite Opera!)
We thought of using blogger for our site, but instead used MT. But I must say, blogger may get me to come back. http://votepair.org
MT? Well, I heard people were leaving MT for WordPress in herds! :)
I have had a problem lately with Blogger eating my posts, which I’ve learned is fairly common.
Otherwise, I am happy with the recent spate of new features and improvements.
Well, that is news to me… And very sad too. I do not seem to hear anything similar from my friends who are using Blogger… Maybe it was a temporary glitch in the service…
What browser you use?
I like some of them, I can’t seem to get the email this post to work with the current post, you can only email previous ones, but it could be because I messed something up. I don’t know if they can make it Luddite-friendly enough for me :)
Blogger getting rid of the ads on blog*spot was a large, most appreciated improvement. There are some new bells and whistles that are kinda neat, but nearly impossible to implement on a customized template. My only complaints (2) are the same as I’ve always had – I cannot get blogger to publish to anything other than the blog*spot servers, and the too frequent downtime. But, I am getting what I pay for. ;)
Always loved the blogger. Makes it easy for people like me who really don’t know computerese very well. It always worked very well until recently, when characters highlighted changed when “pasted” on the blog. It is easily fixed; but gives me an extra step
Fluoride NewsTracker Blog
http://www.fluoridenews.blogspot.com
that happens to be the selling point of Blogger! :)
The changes to Blogger haven’t impacted ME much:
1) I’m still using the dead-plain template I started out with, because it fits what I’m doing; posting essays. Black type on an off-white background that takes up most of the screen is, in my not particularly humble opinion, the best way to display, and read, substantive posts. My links and doodads are as unobtrusive as possible, and there are no flashy graphics and very little color; my blog is for people who want to read and think, not for art appreciation. None of the elaborate features that others love so much would have any place on my blog, so it doesn’t impact me that they’ve been added… other than it making most people’s blogs VERY hard for me to read as THEY include those features-and some blogs I can no longer navigate or even LOAD due to the new features (Mac issue… and every browser other than IE SUCKS on the Mac for my sort of usage).
2) I already had a search on my blog; it works better than the Google search, AND sends me weekly and monthly reports, so I’m keeping it… I wish I could delete the Google one, sigh.
3) The BlogThis thing doesn’t work fully for me (Mac issue), but it doesn’t matter-I’d never use it anyways, as I don’t normally quote or refer to other people’s blogs.
4) The “Next Blog” control makes it easy to surf, but I’ve noticed that the new source of newbie readers isn’t leading to getting linked to more frequently, so it may not be ultimately worthwhile, except for those blogs that no one would read otherwise and need the exposure.
So, overall… I’d rather have the old Blogger back.
I agree, changes prove very good.
Nicer looking, and easier to costomise.
Now I proceed learning html to do it better.
Keep on.
All the best
PaiOca
Hey you have everything that old blogger had. they just removed the adsense and added the bar! :) though I am not sure whether the top bar comes on the FTP based blogs… Would like to know.
I love the new blogger – so much easier to use. It looks better, it works better and now finally I can add images! yay for macs.
Yeah, the new Google bar is great. It’s really easy to use, too.
I love blogger – it’s just easier and simpler and, more often than not, works.
I too love the new Blogger. It’s easier than ever, and it is making much more use of CSS. I’m self taught on HTML and CSS, and it’s very easy to make modifications to the templates. I like the improvements in the posting interface, too. I do wish that every time you apply an attribute like boldface type that it wouldn’t jump back to the top of the page of text. I like to boldface my text links, so I have to find them twice.
I like it. http://hughesair.blogspot.com
Things are definitely looking up, but someone please do something about the worst commenting system ON THE PLANET. Why must I click through two pages to leave a comment, and then have nowhere to put the URL to my blog (unless you know the html)? Not to mention the whole signing in part. Sheesh. I want to physically rough up the person or persons that designed that and I’m not even a violent person.
but you are using greymatter! :)
Someone raised the question about posts being eaten: It used to be a big problem, though I’m not sure if it’s happened since their big revamp last month. I learned a long time ago to always copy my posts to the clipboard until I verify that they’ve actually published.
The search bar should have been instituted a long time ago. Personally I’m not using it because I came across a much better search “system” on another site. And since I had an ad-free site, I’m able to deactivate it.
And I absolutely refuse to use their new commenting feature. It’s a major pain since it requires people to not only log in with a user name, but then wait for new pages to download. For someone who has a slow connection (as I used to, it’s a major pain. Then you have to navigate back to the page you were just reading. That’s why I will continue to use Haloscan. It opens as a new window, doesn’t require an additional log-in to use, and is generally much more convenient.
I have been a blogger for a while but had considered switching to WordPress. I love the new templates and the search bar. I have done quite a bit of web development and never quire acquired design skills. I was also a Picassa and Hello user for sometime and love the fact that Hello has been integrated into the product. I JUST LOVE IT!
Like it all – especially now that I’ve figured out images! Sometimes I post, it doesn’t appear to work. I wait and wait (20 mins once)and then I post again. It works with one post showing. Later on, I go in and low and behold, two identical posts are now there. Don’t get it!
I have been a blogger for a while but had considered switching to WordPress. I love the new templates and the search bar. I have done quite a bit of web development and never quire acquired design skills. I was also a Picassa and Hello user for sometime and love the fact that Hello has been integrated into the product. I JUST LOVE IT!
I really like the changes. I am holding off signing on to the ad (and income) generator, for now, because Google used to come up with some pretty odd matches. I would take them if the only other choice was to pay for the service, but the powers-that-be probably already know that :-)
google adsense lets you options to block advertisers you do not want to appear on your site…
Okay – you asked for it…. :) (Keith http://blog.kah731.com/)
I really like Google and Blogger. I even appreciate Picasa:Hello:Bloggerbot.
I have lost a lot of respect for them based on the way the have responed, or mroe accurately never responded in most cases to my reporting errors and requesting updates.
What I like:
I like the blog-it button (it is why I started blogging).
I like the free site.
I like free posting of pictures via Bloggerbot.
I like the templates you can start with.
I like some of the tricks you can do with templates.
I think the new header is better.
I like the idea of being able to post to an FTP server.
I like that there is spell checking, even if it is a bit wonky.
What I wish for/don’t like:
If you have a blog on an FTP server, there can be some real problems:
If your FTP server is too busy or some such and displays a message with an error, blogger just says an error occured, and the detail just says Java-EOF. I asked them to show the message so that a user can see the error message, and not assume the problem is with blogger.
I noticed that when there is an error posting to FTP, the data is saved in blogger. This is good. But that status shows posted, when it is in more of a draft state. I asked them to change this.
If you use the email option, and the post doesn’t work due to an FTP problem, you get no response from blogger. The data is queued in blogger, and if you go in manually and replublish the entry, the data will finally get to your FTP server. I asked about this too.
When I posted all this to blogger help, as one big problems/wishes entry, the only reply I got was that the problem was with my FTP server. It made me regret that I followed their directions to include more information instead of less. Their reply pissed me off: It completely ignored the fact that it looks like blogger is broken, not the FTP. It ignores the fact that the update status is incorrect. It ignores that there is no reponse from blogger when using email and it cannot post. When I wrote back to them, I got no reply. Which is what I got on most every other request I sent them or Picasa.
I wish there was an interface for adding static pages in blogspot. Such as 100 things, or links or master index or the like.
I wish there was a way to file posts by topic (I noticed someone else posted that here already).
I wish there was a way to have a master index of entries page. I put that in as a wish item. No repsonse. I wrote my own. I posted my solution to blogger, with no repsonse.
Backup/restore tool. I am not the only one to ask for this. They posted on their site that they don’t have a solution. I put in another wish, commenting that I have used wget as a decient way to backup my blogs. I think I could write a restore program script too.
I don’t like not being able to update/edit/delete pictures posted with bloggerbot. There are times I would like to update or delete the pictures I’ve posted with bloggerbot.
I wish I could post more than one picture with bloggerbot. I posted this to Picasa and blogger with no response.
I wish I could have more control over the entry that goes up with the picture with bloggerbot. I posted this to Picasa and blogger with no response.
When using bloggerbot, I wound up with a lot of nonpub links on my blog. There is no error reported during or after publishing. I just found the bad links when checking my backups from my wget script. It required running a republish all to fix it on each site. I reported this to blogger with no repsonse.
When I use blog-it to create a new entry, it has less options than using new entry button.
I had a problem when I wanted to add another userid to a blog, and email was backed up many hours. I wish there was a way to get new ID invite link on a web page.
I don’t like the fact that the date/time of an entry when created with the new entry link has a static time of when you started creating an entry. I wish there was an option to either have an option to have the posting time as the time of the entry and/or have an option for javascript to keep the time up-to-date as you are editing. I put this in as a request with no repsonse.
I wish than when comments are added, a reference to the title/data of the entry would be show. I also wish there was an entry link in the email pointing back to the specific entry page (if that option was turned on). I posted that request with no reply. I also wish that there was a link to the user in the email (if not anonymous).
I wish there was a way to turn on comment approval. It also would be nice if comment approval could be a link in the email indicating there is a new comment.
I wish there was a place to save the FTP userid and password when initially setting up an FTP blog, instead of having to go back into settings to put in the change.
Originally, the google site search did not work. It only searched a very few of my pages that had managed to be indexed on the main google site. So I used anther service’s site search.
Please note: when I said no reply, I was not including the autoresponder. In most cases I did get an autoresponder reply, just no human reply to anything except the one poor FTP response. I also belive I did not get autoresponder replies when I put in a second posting to blogger help in a row. This is when the please write to us form comes back up empty after posting a help entry.
I should add, After a long time, I got 2 replies from Picasa: they said they had email problems, and if I still had an issure to reply to the email. I replied to one of the emails. No response. That was quite a few weeks ago.
Early on, I did notice that some features seemed to be added based on my comments. But it was only when I got around to looking at the update page that I saw that they might have paid any attention to my feedback to them.
If they were honest and replied that they looked at my requests, but don’t have enough resources to work on what I suggested, I would have a lot more respect for them. The fact that for the most part they have ignored my feedback, and in one case were trite, makes me very unhappy with giving them feedback.
I’ve been using Blogger for a year now and I have to say I’m satisfied with new features. Of course, if they implemented categories and such I’d be happier person, but for now I’m fine with my own system for categorizing.
One thing which drives me crazy is the comment section. One has to log in as a Blogger user to comment on anything. If not, you’ll have to settle for plain Anonymous.
Keith’s comments are comprehensive. But I am satisfied with the updates.
Overall, I like the new blogger interface, it is the glitches that kill me though. Blogger has eaten several very long and time consuming posts when I tried to publish them. So, again, overall, I like the system, but the bugs are very frustrating.
Overall I am very pleased with Blogger, the service is free and while I have lost a couple posts, it is worth every cent I spend on it.
I absolutely love blogger. I started using it in 02 and I have to say that I’ve never really had problems with it. I put my blog on my own domain (http://www.simply-magical.com) and conveted the entire thing to PHP using headers and footers with no problems at all. It’s been a little weird seeing how much blogger has changed it’s user interface, but I love the new design.
If I had known then what I know now about PHP and CGI scripts, I may have decided to use Greymatter, simply because everything runs off your own server. But honestly it is nice not taking up the room and using a remotely hosted server instead.
There are only two problems that I have with blogger. The first is that after I converted the site to PHP, I couldn’t change the archive and now I need to figure it out because I don’t want to have to make a new archive by hand. Also, comments are terrible. I just use haloscan.
The nav bar isn’t shown on ftp sites. I’ve also never had FTP errors on my blog. Sounds like a server issue as opposed to a blogger issue.
I liked the old Blogger better, both in terms of the functionality of the old (“Classic”) interface (where you could see more than one tiny sliver of information at a time, no click-this-then-this-then-oh-yeah-this-too nonsense) and the older look as well. I appreciate the search feature in principle (I have not seen any evidence that anyone has used it on my blogs), and I’m glad that they decided to allow AdSense on our blogs. I wish they’d just adopt the basic functionality that everyone else already has (like real permalinks that don’t insist on creating strange “kind of like the title of the post” post pages). Oh, and TrackBack, and comments that pop up (I use HaloScan too) and so forth. Actually now that I have a job again, I’ll be getting ready to move over to WordPress or MT (haven’t decided which yet) and my own domain and so forth. The changes they made weren’t enough to keep me around, especially with other issues that take months or years to fix (e.g. they changed the formatting options overnight, without warning — my blog is now permanently stuck with an inverted post order within any given day’s set of posts). Anyway, like all free systems, I don’t trust it further than I can toss it.
I really like Blogger, I actually moved from Xanga because I liked it so much. It is so much more professional, efficient and has some great features. The only down side is, sometimes the server either slows to a crawl or stops working completely. It isn’t a big problem, but it would be better if it wasnt there. But yeah, blogger has really evolved into one of the best(if not the best) blogging services available today! You can check my blog @ http://bladehelix.blogspot.com
I’ve been with Blogger since the beginning, good and bad. It was rough for awhile, but they were a struggling young company. I’m happy to see it becoming a mature product…
As a total non-webby-geek-type, I love Blogger. For the simplicity. For the ability to write without thinking about design. ‘Cause that would totally void the joy of the experience for someone like me. The improvements even since my beginnings in February have been significant, especially the removal of the ad banners. Now I only hope they keep it free.
How can anyone complain about Blogger? It’s friggin free. If you don’t like it, go spend a couple of dollars for one you’ll be happy with. I think Google knows their on to something and more cool features will be added down the road. BloggerBot is very cool. I love the fact that they host the image and it can be posted directly from their software. Blogger rocks!
Yes Sushubh, I use Greymatter for now, but I do also have a blog on blogspot. The horrible comment feature keeps me with HaloScan though.
It’s interesting to come upon this discussion about three days after I griped about Blogger on my AOL Journal (I’ll pause while you boo and hiss). At least part of the site was down for about half a day, so nothing would republish. I was trying to change my template at the time, so I was afraid, as the status page reloaded at 0% forever, that I’d messed something up.
I have to say that I barely noticed the changes. By the time I revamped the St. Michael’s blog our pastor started, there were quite a few templates to choose from, and I had no trouble finding out that worked. (Before that, it was about the ugliest blog on the planet!) Now there are no ads at the top for Christianity-related sites, but I don’t really care either way. And I haven’t done much commenting on Blogger sites, so I haven’t noticed any problems there since the day I started my blog for the sole purpose of being able to comment on someone else’s.
My big gripe, both for that blog and for mine, (Messages from Mavarin), is that the templates no longer include a place for links, assuming they ever did. I had to do a lot of reading through and experimenting with code to get that up and running, and I’m still not entirely happy with it. Wouldn’t you say that links on the sidebar are a fairly basic component of most blogs? So why the omission? Of the three services I use for the three journals, Blogger is the one that reqires the most HTML competence, even now.
I get a ton more use out of the AOL Journal. It gets more hits, more links from other people, and is part of real community. No, really! AOL Journalers like to read other AOL Journals. And over on LiveJournal, I just upgraded and redesigned my mostly writing-related journal without fussing with code (other than color designations). I can even do polls there now.
AOL Journalers recently got all upset because AOL squashed the highly adult-oriented (but not graphically representational) comic strips of a journaler who had been posting the things for months without a problem. The guy (and probably some other AOL refugees) moved over to Blogger. Whatever. The bottom is is that, for me, Blogger isn’t any better or appreciably worse than the other two services I use. Now, if Google makes it easier to customizae without extensive code-wrangling, THEN I’ll be impressed.
Karen
I stayed with blogger after trying (and liking) greymatter.
At first I did not know how to ping the blog directories.
Now I’ve learned how to advertise my rss feed, but stayed because
of the google PR.
The fact that some of the altermatives I might use are NOT free doesn’t hurt.
I hate the new Blogger. I write in ‘Word’ and all I want to do is get into Blogger fast, paste to an HTML frame add my links. Then save my post and check that the links work in preview before I publish and get out. There are too many frills and too many extremely slow pages to flip back and forth through before your finished. Why Can’t I do this on one page free of all these madly slow useless options that take forever to load….Bill
I tried using the Blogger navbar but found that it would never correctly set the URL to be searched. A “/” was needed between the domain name and the path to the blog but it wasn’t getting inserted. I switched to using the standard Google search and that works fine.
P.S. My blog is at Phantasmablogia
I like it a lot!!
When I set up my business blog, I made a conscious decision to go with Blogger — for a couple of reasons.
First, with Blogger being owned by Google, I was betting that Google would plow a ton of money into upgrading the service. So far, that’s proven to be true.
Second, a little investigating told me that Blogger blogs get awesome search engine position in Google. That’s also proven to be true. I publish on several blogs, including MT and Typepad. The Blogger blog gets the highest search engine position of all.
Third, Blogger is free. Can’t beat that.
Oh, there are a few relatively minor issues. Blogger’s recent update caused my RSS feed to no longer work. Lack of category archiving or pre-set navigation is a bit of a drag. And the blogspot domain is blocked in countries like China, limiting my global audience.
But the benefits of Blogger still outweigh the problems, at least for me.
Best,
Anita Campbell
I feel honored to insisting on loving Blogger ! now blogger, is best blogging system, it has most of the other system’s feather .
beside that, by blogging by blogger , you will never loose your posts, because they are always alvailable on Blogger Server.
http://www.blog.Medyadaily.com from Iranian Kurdistan
I use Radio and Blogger and whilst Radio has more feature (whicj I pay for) I find it a bit cumbersome. Blogger is simple and fast (like GMail and Google) please keep it that way.
I found Blogger is easy to use and once I got over one or two technical issues of incorporating it into my site I have found it to be a godsend for adding up to date offers from shops in the UK. I think the only cumbersome thing about Blogger is that it takes an age to get recognised.
RSS is a bit of a mystery to me at the moment although I am sure that it is not. I have followed the instructions but have never found out how to know that the feed has been picked up or is on show to the public.
The site with the blogger has been marketed via conventional routes and has been submitted to the various blog search engines and the results have been that the site shows in the search engines like Google, yahoo and others but not on the all important blog search engines. Admittedly this was some months ago and maybe now is the time to try resubmitting again.
On the whole I love Blogger as it is easy to use easy to follow in the main and very convenient.
I have no compaints at all – even tis week I had a problem republishing my blog. I asked them to look into it and within a day they had sorted the problem. Now I think that is realy good service.
Blogger is awesome! It is simple to manage and the new templates look very cool. Whether you have computer knowledge or not doesn’t matter- it’s that easy! It is a great way to post whatever your cause is so the rest of the world can view it. I’m building a global network- sharing a new health discovery called ‘Glyconutrients!’ Blogger couldn’t have come around at a better time.
I like the new features.
I joined up with blogger just long enough to get used to the “classic” way, then they started shifting up on me.
It was a change, but I’ve grown to love the new blogger, blogging by email and being able to drift through blogs using the toolbar really REALLY rocks, I’m like a hamster on a wheel with that thing!
Totally agree with the article. Blogger’s got a lot smarter with the new kit in place. The dashboard and editing interface gets better every time. I was thinking of moving over, but not anymore. Rayy Blogger!
Blogger was my first introduction into the world of Blogging, and although I don’t use it much, I must admit I like the new updates and options. The templates are tip-top and are so easy to change! Blogging has really taken off and the articles found on a lot of the Blogging sites are more informative that general sites, Blogger is about the best there is.
The toolbar is a vast improvement over the ads, and while the new ‘look’ took a while for me to adjust to, I find that overall the “New” Blogger is quite enjoyable. Good jorb, Blogger!
I miss the old ‘PREVIEW’ button : used to be able to ‘trick’ around with the HTML and preview same before it goes out ‘live’ – cannot do that now (unless ye all know somethin’ I don’t …? !).
Slan anois .
I use it for teaching and its pretty good but my own blog software has been built by my company. I agree with those who find the commenting facilities pretty primitive and hate having to login to comment.
With minor exceptions, the amateur hack like myself has had great success with Blogger, although I stil hate the word blog. It’s an ugly word for a beautiful medium.
http://rat-sass.blogspot.com
Oh, and read me. See amateur success at work.
I wasn’t too impressed with Blogger when I first started my blog. However, they have been committed to a policy of constant incremental improvement. Now, I think it’s pretty good. I just wish I could store pictures…
I love blogger, i write some atom script in asp to work with blog feed . As soon as possible i put on my web a solution that i use to classify the posts (i call it in italian “tutte le news”, all the news..), written in asp and totally compatible with blogger, you can try it here. I use ad sense.. my blog is classified as source in italian Google News! ciao!
blogger sweet~
I upgraded from Win98/dialup to XP/wireless at the same time that Blogger updated. Imagine my suprise when I logged into my Blogger account for the first time in weeks using my new computer! I am delighted by the new interface and look forward to incorporating the search toolbar soon.
I have had a few problems with the new Blogger — posts getting lost when I try to save as a draft or publish them. But you soon learn to copy everything before trying to put it on Blogger.
Last week Blogger was just plain not working for a while — see their status page. The claim is that it is now fixed, and indeed it does seem to be OK.