The latest tips and news from the Blogger team
Introducing Knol
July 23, 2008
A few months ago, we
announced a new web authoring tool called Knol
.
Well,
today we've announced its public launch
, and we wanted to tell you a little bit more about it and how you might use it to complement your blog. Blogs are great for quickly and easily getting your latest writing out to your readers, while
knols are better for when you want to write an authoritative article on a single topic
. The tone is more formal, and, while it's easy to update the content and keep it fresh, knols aren't designed for continuously posting new content or threading. Know how to fix a leaky toilet, but don't want to write a blog about fixing up your house? In that case, Knol is for you.
Except for the different format, you'll get all the things you've come to expect from Blogger in Knol. Like Blogger, Knol has simple web authoring tools that make it
easy to collaborate
,
co-author
, and
publish
. It has community features as well:
Your readers will be able to add comments and rate your article, and, if you want, they'll be able to suggest edits that you can then either accept or reject.
And, just like in Blogger, you can also choose to
include ads from AdSense
in your knols to perhaps make a little money.
One other important difference between Knol and Blogger is that Knol encourages you to reveal your true identity. Knols are meant to be authoritative articles, and, therefore, they have a strong focus on authors and their credentials. We feel that this focus will help ensure that authors get credit for their work, make the content more credible.
All in all, we think
Knol will be a great new way for you to share what you know, inform people about an issue that is important to you, raise your profile as an expert in your field, and maybe even make some money from ads
.
Create your Knol right now for free
.
Updates and Fixes for July 18th
July 18, 2008
Here’s a quick summary of recent fixes and changes we’ve made to Blogger:
Blogger is now available in Malay! Blogger has a large base of users in Malaysia and we are excited to now bring them Blogger in their native language.
Comment moderation can now be automatically enabled after a fixed number of days.
Spam interstitials now let readers click through to blogs.
Blog feeds optionally include your email address.
Show off your favorite blogs with a Blog List
June 05, 2008
Today we’re releasing a new page element for Layouts blogs:
Blog List
. The Blog List improves on our Link List page element by using blogs’ RSS and Atom feeds to show update times, post titles, and snippets.
Use a Blog List to
put a blogroll in your sidebar
, or make a few to categorize the blogs you read. The Blog List works well for any page that has an RSS or Atom feed, so you can get creative: link to
news sites
,
podcasts
,
Twitter streams
,
search results
, or anything else with a feed.
Here’s a quick summary of the features that a Blog List gives you:
Link to blogs, web pages, and feeds from your blog’s sidebar, with an optional favicon
For pages with RSS and Atom feeds, Blog List can show last updated time, post title, and a snippet of the latest post
Sort links alphabetically or by last update time
Show all links, or hide some behind a “show all” link
Import subscriptions from Google Reader
Blog List links are visible to search engine crawlers, so your blog’s
PageRank
and reputation flow to those you link to
Want to see it in action? We made a help video to walk you through adding and configuring a Blog List:
Thanks go out to everyone who
chimed in
on the
Blogger in draft blog
while this feature was being developed. You helped us a lot!
Tip:
Want to show more posts from a single blog? Use the Feed page element to put any RSS or Atom feed in your blog’s sidebar.
Updates and Bug Fixes for June 5th
June 05, 2008
Today’s release brings a handful of tweaks and fixes, as well as the new Blog List page element. Here’s some of what we fixed:
If you delete a post or make a typo in a post URL, the resulting 404 page now says “page not found” instead of the incorrect “blog not found.”
<blockquote>
tags no longer break the line height of later paragraphs in the Minima, Scribe, Harbor, Dots, 867/565, Moto, and Thisaway templates.
If you’ve edited your CSS or blog widget template, you may not get this fix, or, worse, you’ll lose line spacing in your posts.
For a fix, see the
known issue on this bug
. (We apologize for this one-time disruption.)
OpenID logins for comments now work when the OpenID URL redirects to another page.
Layouts blogs will now display on Blog*Spot even when the template has invalid
data:
tags, rather than showing a bX code page.
Performance improvements across Blogger.com and Blog*Spot.
Enjoy! We’ll have a bit more to say about Blog List later today, as well as some new fixes and features on
Blogger in draft
.
Updates and Bug Fixes for May 9th
May 09, 2008
Here’s a quick summary of recent fixes and changes we’ve made to Blogger:
Layouts now has a
blog.pageName
datum that gives the name of the current page without the “[Blog Name]: ” prefix that
blog.pageTitle
adds.
Picture page element can now optionally link the picture to a URL.
Warnings and better handling of interrupted video uploads.
Pictures shot in burst mode on Sony Ericsson phones are now rotated correctly.
Blog URL now updates correctly when switching between Blog*Spot and FTP hosting.
Usability improvements to photo deletion workflow on the delete post page.
“Cancel” button on delete post page no longer has
unnecessary quotation marks
.
Miscellaneous translation improvements.
Profile URLs and threading data
are now available via Atom feed.
Reliability and feature improvements
to the Blog List and gadget directory on Blogger in draft.
Also, in case you missed the announcement, last week we started
scheduling posts dated in the future
.
Apologies again for the
unexpected appearance of star ratings
. Look for this feature soon (opt-in only!) on Blogger in draft.
Multiple-size Embedded Presentations from Google Docs
May 06, 2008
Google Docs
has just
updated their embedded presentation feature to support multiple sizes
, so now presentations can look even better in blog posts. To add a presentation to your blog, create it in Google Docs and copy the “Mini Presentation Module” HTML into a blog post. (See:
Embedding Presentations in a Web Site
)
For an example, take a look at this small-sized presentation:
You can include YouTube videos, images, and text captions into slides to condense and display a “deck” of graphical content in a concise format in your posts.
Google Docs is a free, web-based word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application.
Try it now
.
Blogger now schedules future-dated posts
May 01, 2008
Scheduled post publishing
, which we
talked about
testing on
Blogger in draft
last month, is now live for everyone. If you set a post’s date into the future, Blogger will
wait to publish
until that time comes.
Have you ever wanted to
announce something on a certain date
but knew you wouldn’t be at a computer to make a post? Or you wanted to
keep posting regularly
but knew you’d be on vacation for a few weeks? Scheduled post publishing is here to help you out.
Scheduling a post is easy to do: on the post editor page, click the “Post Options” toggle to show the “Post date and time” fields. Then, type a post date and time that’s in the future. When you click the “Publish” button, your post will become “scheduled.” When the date and time of the post arrive, it will be
automatically published to your blog
.
“Scheduled” posts appear in your Edit Posts list alongside your drafts and published posts. To un-schedule a post, simply save it as a draft any time before it gets published.
One quick note:
If you want to give a post a date in the future but have it appear on your blog now, you’ll need to add in an extra step. First, publish your post with the current date and time. This will make it appear on your blog. Then, edit the post to change the date into the future and publish it again.
We don’t re-schedule posts that are already published, so the post will stay on your blog but sort to the very top. The same is true of future dated posts you’ve already made, so there’s no need to worry about your existing posts disappearing, or having your blog assaulted by unplanned entries in, say, 2027.
P.S.: Thanks to everyone who tested this out on Blogger in draft and posted comments! We appreciate your time and effort.
Updates and Bug Fixes for April 18th
April 18, 2008
We haven’t made one of these posts for a while, so here’s a quick summary of some of the changes and fixes we’ve made today and in the past few weeks.
Today’s Fixes
The “Add another image” link in the image upload box now works even if you haven’t filled in a URL.
The labels field in the post editor autocompletes more predictably when one label starts with the same words as another.
URLs in the Name / URL part of the comment form are now validated.
Header fixes for the 897 and 565 templates.
The draft / published / scheduled filters on the Edit Posts list now work reliably in Internet Explorer.
Videos uploaded through Sony Ericsson phones now appear as enclosures in the blog’s Atom and RSS feeds, so they can be retrieved with a video podcast client.
Miscellaneous typos and translations corrected.
Other Recent Changes:
New blogs have OpenID commenting enabled by default.
XFN
rel="me"
links between blogs and profiles.
Adding more than 5 poll choices now works in Internet Explorer.
The search box on the Edit Posts page is now available in all supported languages.
The “www” redirect option is now available for custom domains that end in “.co.uk.”
New “Related Resources” box on the Dashboard links to AdSense, Google Reader, and Picasa Web Albums.
So long, and thanks for all the zen!
April 11, 2008
We’re bidding farewell today to
Eric Case
. Eric joined Google five years ago so that he could do something —
anything
— for Blogger. Since then, he’s answered support tickets, launched
blog
s, designed features, hung out with
MC Hammer
,
eaten
very slowly without
drinking
, and, for the past year, been our
product manager
, with all that that
entails
.
We’ll miss you, Eric! You made Blogger better. Good luck with your next
endeavors
, and we’ll be reading your
blog
.
— Pete, and the rest of the Blogger team
Blog List, Scheduled Post Publishing on Blogger in draft
April 02, 2008
Have you tried out
Blogger in draft
, Blogger’s experimental features site, recently? Blogger in draft is a version of Blogger with features we’re trying out before we “publish” them to everybody on the main site. (See our original announcement: “
Blogger... in draft
.”)
If you’re feeling adventurous, all you need to do to try it out is
log in to
draft.blogger.com
instead of
www.blogger.com
. If you see the blueprint logo then you’re in the right place.
Our two latest features, which you can try out now on
draft.blogger.com
, are:
Scheduled Post Publishing
If you write a post on Blogger in draft and set the post’s date and time to some time in the future, we’ll schedule the post to appear on your blog at that time, and not before.
Blog List
Add a blogroll to your blog’s sidebar. The Blog List is powered by Google Reader, so it can show when each blog was last updated and even include post titles and snippets.
Keep in mind these features are still being worked on, and let us know if you find any problems.
We have other page elements on draft, too:
Help your readers subscribe to your blog in their favorite feed reader with the
Feed Subscription
page element.
Add any of the thousands of Google Gadgets to your blog’s sidebar with our
Google Gadget support
.
Search over your blog, your Link Lists, or all the pages you’ve ever linked to with the
Search Box
.
We post the latest news about Blogger in draft to the
Blogger in draft blog
. Stop by often and write comments about how the draft features are working for you.
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