Archive for the ‘Blogger News’ Category
by Darnell Clayton on March 11th, 2010
After offering users the same stale templates for months on end (if not years), it looks like Google has finally added some decent themes for blogspot fans, as well as making it easier for non-geeks to redesign the layout of their blogs.
(Blogger Buzz) We’re thrilled to announce that the Blogger Template Designer has launched toBlogger in Draft, our experimental playground where users can try out Blogger’s latest features. The Template Designer brings a new level of customization to your blog. [...]
We worked with iStockphoto, the leading microstock image marketplace, to put together a great collection of beautiful images and patterns to use as backgrounds on your blogs. The photos are stunning, and are free to use on your Blogger blog.
Google is also teaming up with the Blogger theme designers in order to have their creations featured within the new theme store, which should help make BlogSpot blogs slightly more attractive (as not everyone is gifted in web design). Read More
Categories: Blogger News
Tags: Blogger, google
by Darnell Clayton on January 23rd, 2010
After unleashing custom domains to the world for Blogger, it looks as if the boys and girls at Google will be shutting down FTP access for the small faction who refused to host themselves upon Mountain View’s servers. Read More
Categories: Blogger News
Tags: Blogger, FTP, google
by Karlo Licudine on December 16th, 2009
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. For what Microsoft did to start-up company, Plurk, it’s more like a slap to the face.
Plurk, one of the biggest microblogging services in Asia, is accusing Microsoft China for ripping off not only their design but also their code with their beta release of MSN Juku, Microsoft China’s newly released microblogging service based on Windows Live Messenger launched last November 2009.
According to Plurk’s blog post,
“… we were absolutely shocked and outraged when we first saw with our own eyes the cosmetic similarities Microsoft’s new offering had with Plurk. From the filter tabs, emoticons, qualifier/verb placement, Karma scoring system, media support, new user walkthroughs to pretty much everything else that gives Plurk its trademark appeal, Microsoft China’s offering ripped off our service.”
To see for yourself, below is a screenshot of Microsoft Juku and Plurk:
If Microsoft wanted a horizontal style layout, they could’ve at least changed the design elements! I mean, c’mon!
More after the jump…
Read More
Categories: Blogger News, Microblogging
by Regnard Raquedan on October 1st, 2009
The 9rules blog network is accepting submissions for a new round of blogs!
The new round of submissions has begun and will end at 11:59 PM EST today. This is consistent with 9rules’ 24-hour window of blog submissions.
If you’re interested in joining a network of quality blogs, then submit yours now! Remember, submissions end within the day and feel free to spread the word.
Categories: Blogger News, Blogging Tips
Tags: blogging
by Karlo Licudine on September 26th, 2009
As a part of their tenth birthday celebration, Blogger.com has recently announced a new feature that displays the profile picture on your Blogger account next to embedded blog comments similar to Gravatars on Wordpress.
The feature is automatically enabled on all blogspot blogs. To enable/disable the feature, go to your blogs Settings>Comments page and you’ll find the option labeled “Show profile images on comments?”
For those who don’t have a profile photo yet, Blogger has included a form wherein you could upload a photo while in the comment preview page. The next time you comment on a blogger blog, your profile photo will be automatically added next to your comment.
Additional news: A few weeks ago, Blogger launched another new feature called “jump break“, which is quite similar to Wordpress’ “more tag” feature.
Categories: Blogger News
by jim on September 15th, 2008
Honestly, this new feature reminded me a little bit of the Twitter environment. I say that because I first saw this type of feature at Twitter.com :) BUT NOW, it’s Blogger.com’s new Followers gadget. This gadget allows you to see who’s following/reading your blog AND has become a fan of it by adding it to their list of favorite blogs to visit. As you could see above, it uses their blogger.com avatar as part of the gadget display.
Take a peek at what you see as the blog owner in your blogger dashboard:
A neat summary of how many followers you have AND the ability to “pay-back” by following your followers blogs too. Now isn’t that useful? :)
At the dashboard you are given the ability to follow other blogs too, even if they’re not hosted at blogger.com. Just head on to your dashboard and click “add”, then type in the blog address to quickly add it to your favorites. If the blog you just followed is hosted at blogger.com your avatar will be included in that blog’s followers list.
Haven’t seen this added to WordPress 2.7 features yet. I hope the widget developers can also make a WordPress version soon?
Categories: Blogger News, Blogger Tools
by jim on August 6th, 2008
Distinguished blogger, William Patry, has decided to stop blogging. Every post, all but his farewell, is now a stark reminder of how he was brought to that decision. Understanding the post comments, it would evidence the legacy that this blogger has impressed on his readers. I know that this post is now starting to feel like a eulogy, maybe because William Patry has contributed 26 years of personal views into 800 blog posts over a 4-year time period. The blogosphere has lost an excellent blog, and a much sought-after and widely-read blogger.
I’ve visited other blogs (here, here and here) who have mentioned this story. In a unifying way they have expressed a great loss for the internet. Patry’s copyright blog has been a great reference to lawyers, politicians, big big companies and well, his fans. That blog will surely be missed.
Who is William Patry? He is…
Senior Copyright Counsel, Google Inc. Formerly copyright counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, formerly Policy Planning Advisor to the Register of Copyrights, formerly Law Professor, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; author of numerous treatises and articles (including one on fair use with Judge Richard Posner), including the new 7 volume treatise on “Patry on Copyright”. The views in this blog are strictly mine and should not be attributed to Google Inc.
That text reference was taken from the “about me” section of his blog accessed thru www.archive.org . The last line, to me, is the most striking one. His blog was a personal blog, and while he is Senior Copyright Counsel of Google, that last line separated his views from his office. When he posts, he says he posts not as Google’s Senior Copyright Counsel, but as William Patry. It would seem that many found it hard to read his words in a personal nature. Reading his farewell post, he mentions that he leaves for two reasons:
- The Inability or Refusal to Accept the Blog for What it is: A Personal Blog
- The Current State of Copyright Law is too depressing
Categories: Blogger News
by jim on June 21st, 2008
The American Red Cross has published a wordpress blog about all efforts and news of the June 2008 flooding in Indiana, Illinois, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and West Virginia.
Because of WordPress’ quick setup and use facility, the blog was able to set-up specific feeds from several Red Cross regions in the affected states. People can subscribe to RSS feeds from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
The blog currently has 23 active categories, most interesting is their photo blog (linking to their flickr feeds) containing Red Cross “in action” in those areas.
I’ve noticed that it updates quickly allowing people to get the “blow by blow” news where needed, when needed. Another great WordPress way of initiating grass roots cooperation within, and between, Red Cross centers.
Very informative is the “how to use” section and the “maps” page. Gives you a great feeling of what’s happening “on the ground” and where best you can fit in to help.
The developers, I see, have used a lot of the freebee services the internet has to offer, from flickr to slideshow.com to the feeds… you name it… they’ve used it.
Categories: Blogger News, General, Interesting
by David Peralty on May 18th, 2007
Another popular blogging service has added a feature that WordPress has had for a while: auto saving of drafts.
Here are some details from Blogger’s Blog:
Today we’re adding autosaving of draft posts to the Blogger post editor. Now you don’t have to feel so bad about browser crashes, random laptop restarts, or that hamster vs. gerbil war going on behind your desk that keeps knocking your power cord out of the socket, because Blogger is automatically saving as you type! It’s doing it to me right now. Even if I…
*smash*
Whoops! I just pretended that my browser crashed for the purpose of illustrating that the above paragraph is still intact, thanks to autosave! So say “goodbye” to lost blog posts. You won’t miss them.
I am happy to see more blogging tools use such features, as I am forever crashing Firefox on both my laptop and desktop. Interesting though that I haven’t heard of any new features being added lately to a hosted tool that WordPress doesn’t already have.
Categories: Blogger News
by David Peralty on March 26th, 2007
One of the blogs I try to keep up with is written by Erik Sagen. The blog, known as Kartooner.com, has been around for a while now, and while I hate to see it change drastically, I know that he is doing what is best for both his own creativity and his audience (me).
After 4 years of writing, off and on, about a variety of things such as odd thoughts, close calls, success (and failure) and other things now relegated to the archives, it’s time to switch directions and start anew.
From the get go I’ve always envisioned this site as an outlet for experimental creativity and to share the results of such with whomever was interested.
This site’s focus was never meant to be excluded to just a blog, but due to my interests in creative writing it just remained. Like Anton, I’ve been ready for quite some time to move away from just being a blog and realign (not that kind of realignment) my interests and the intentions of this site.
What intrigued me the most is his idea for his archives, and something I am seeing catch on more and more, moving them to paper. That’s right, he will be taking some of his best from his archives and using Lulu, a self publishing platform and printing up a copy or two.
Check out his blog for all the details and thoughts behind his restart.
Categories: Blogger News
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