28.4.08 | Posted by
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No, this is not a continuation of my own posts talking about this over a year ago. this time is coming from a member of the Digital Press at The Standard:
I've been using Blogger since 2004. As a
basic blogging platform, it works. But when I read yet another
account of spammers taking over the service, it made my blood boil. The
problem isn't just that Google has failed to put all of the security and
anti-spam pieces together. No, what really bothers me is Google has neglected
Blogger for years, while concentrating its efforts on newer acquisitions and
higher-profile services, such as Google Maps.
Ian is of course mildly wrong here, Google not only has neglected Blogger, it always has acted this way with acquisitions that were either not invented/developed at Google Labs or assimilated into the Google Brand. some notable mentions not including Blogger are Picasa, Dodgeball and Jaiku.
Flagrant examples of leaving properties to rot. in the case of Dodgeball the case is even more sad because one of the founders resigned angry at Google when 6 month (or so) passed without Google letting Dodgeball do anything to save themselves from irrelevancy against the monster that followed later (Twitter).
The acquisition of Jaiku is also a case of tech that has not moved anywhere. any smart web tech follower would see that in the scheme of things, Dodgeball and Jaiku could or should make a combination of some sort as a way to battle Twitter. the first option of Google when shopping around was not Jaiku but Twitter. it is said (rumors) that Evan Williams (Pyra,Blogger and Odeo) was the reason Twitter didn`t sold to Google. Evan knows pretty well how Google works better than no one and i can assure that if they had been acquired by Google, the Twitter Craze would have may never happened, it would have got called Jaiku Craze instead because of how Google Operates with Acquisitions.
The only exception being YouTube and that was because YouTube was already huge having the upper hand at the negotiation all the time.
Returning to Blogger, Ian commits another mistake in the way he points out:
Blogger is just now rolling out a feature that lets bloggers
publish in the future.
Err no, testing a feature for future roll out, is not rolling it out Ian. you may want to replace "rolling out" with "testing" because it gives the impression the feature is out for all even if you are linking to the Blogger in Draft blog.
I also don`t care about the Blogger Splog controversy. i have known for a long time that Google makes a decent amount of money of Spammers and that they also used to serve another purpose.
Right now boiling all down to wanting the most needed things. i think the most needed things at Blogger are a Revamped Comment System (the truly worst part of Blogger by far) and a update to the Dashboard, Post Editor, Template Editor and Profiles.
Just making them work better and giving them a decent update to 2008. i mean, even Orkut looks better than Blogger now...
The latter are usually always covered by me over there, but never in detail because i am there to report, not to tutorialize or go deep into the implementation of such Widgets.
I think i can bring those cases to Bloggeratto either Widget by Post or in Resume when viable.
Could be a good way to give a more Rounded coverage on certain widgets that deserve such treatment. i would then follow suite and post a list of those posts in Widgets Lab that lead here.
Convergence and Subject re-use FTW!.
I think it Makes sense and it lets me shamelessly promote myself. what is not to like?
I will not deny that it has been hard to maintain my track on this blog, not because i don`t want to post in it. but because how i used to post in it. i was used to do long posts in Bloggeratto. doing long posts is no longer that cool and everyone is on the train to Blogging Economization. The downsizing of writing whatever you had in your mind into a resume of what you have in mind.
I don`t get used to the idea of that. i am trying to separate my channels of attention and expression so they don`t overlap and then i can find different angles to cast into the world.
The New New
I finally found the right way of continuing Bloggeratto plus i always have done. the first thing was to identify from where the new Blogger based talent blogs that are improving Blogger and check if they were constant enough for me to bother taking them into account then it was about the rest of the content. i have nailed it. i have found enough Blogger based Bloggers worth of my time and yours.
Blogger Fashionetti and The Re-Use of Other People Clothes.
The most dramatic change i noted in Blogger is that you can now find any Wordpress based template in Blogger or that people can port pretty much any design from Wordpress, Tumblr and elsewhere into Blogger.
While my friend Aditya would argue this means nothing. i think it is a good deal. that proves the point that sometimes the template do make the blog or help it compensate. now no one can say that Blogger don`t has the cool themes Wordpress has because Blogger users have ported the best already.
there are also wonders of adaptation and modification, from what were wordpress or tumblr templates turned into something else entirely. something i did here in Bloggeratto with the help of aditya almost two years back.
Then you got the new designs executed in Blogger blogs. i am pleased to see that there are some quite creative people that managed to make their blogger blosgs very pretty.
Blogger Concept Bloggers.
A special trait to be found more in Blogger based blogs is ultra specific Blogging. it goes beyond niche blogging, i do that in Widgets Lab and it is harder than it looks if you don`t want things to turn into infologging.
I mean Blogs about very specific things just to give some offbeat examples, i have found hundreds of these blogs in Blogger and never anywhere else. blogs blogging about Sharks, Photoshop errors, prank calls, etc,etc,etc.
That is something i also want to cover, it is that unique.
There are also concept blogs like the now inescapable Post Secret that take things further on the notion of having "unique content".
Brand Blogging
Closing Up
Those are some of the points i want to take from. just figured that it would be nice to share what i was thinking lately and to confirm the blog is not dead or comatose again.
Imp at "A Consuming Experience" got a really good and detailed post on how to implement a Custom Domain in your Blogspot Blogger Blog using the feature from the same name.
It is a great post and really needed because i also got to struggle with it while helping other people to set their own blogs.
One serious note that is not me endorsing a brand just because, but the domain provider that best works with Custom Domain is without a doubt GoDaddy. i had to set some blog in others and they crapped out bad, domain provider fault. i even had to transfer the domains, so that gives you an idea. so if you are not tech inclined just follow Imp tutorial and stick to a GoDaddy domain to avoid troubles.
I don´t have sarcastic remarks to make about this man. if he was the reason more documentation were added into Blogger Help, Support Mails were answered and new blogs got added to Blogs of Note at a higher pace, then i just salute you graham, good luck with your new ventures.
So long, and thanks for all the help via Blogger Buzz
I guess it was not as clear to most that i was joking on my last post about Blogger Filipino Support.
So i want to make a clarification on why i said Tagalog was/is the Official language of the Philippines so i will quote from a note one of my Pinoy friends sent me as a
"you are right but...."
In a nutshell, Tagalog was chosen as the national language in 1937. In 1959, it was renamed to Pilipino (note the
. This was reaffirmed in the 1973 constitution (but set the spark to develop a language called Filipino). Then in 1987 Filipino was made the national language, which "shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages."From my understanding, this was supposed to be some sort of Philippine Esperanto but instead Tagalog was used the base while vocabulary from other Philippine languages was to be imported. And in a sense, it kind of has. There has been a Filipino dictionary (which I've not yet seen) published by the University of the Philippines that has imported these words ===> something from that blog
That means i am fundamentally right from a historic point because even if Filipino is now the national name of the language, the reasons to be it so are merely political unlike when tagalog was named the national language as a ethnic identification of the Philippines.
So yeah, both ways are right, just that i have history on my side to feel i am even more right. :P
My pinoy friend say this is one of those never ending controversies so why arguing with them when i see it in their own blogs like:
The Filipino vs. Tagalog debate: Bisalog
I hope this clears up the why of my last post.
Oh my, i think Pete Hopskins from Blogger must be drinking while working again because he says people from the Philippines (Filipinas en Español, because they named the country in Honor of Felipe el hermoso) speak Filipino. i guess that means i Speak Mexican and not Spanish. how blind i have been!
But obviating Pete serious drinking problem under working hours, the good news is that all my fellow Pinoy friends can now not only end their sentences with "Po" (when possible) like when they write in Tagalog. but they now can do it in their own Localized version of Blogger.
And am glad they recognized Philippines needed support, it has one of the most vibrant Blogger Based Blogging Communities right now.
Like i said it got some Pinoy friends and i am even making a trip over there, so i am not just saying it just because saying. they do have a huge Blogger Based Blogging Community.
Blogger now in Filipino via Blogger Buzz
*Update*: yes, i do know i am being way too sarcastic, cynic and ironic for my own good. it is part of a sense of humor.
*Update 2*; i posted a clarification here
I have read recently that many Bloggers are worried about the state of Blogging because of the surge of MicroBlogging. I find such a worry to be not only unfounded but actually nonsense.
Such concerns about MicroBlogging are absurd because it don`t hurts the Bloggers or the Blogosphere just because more people are turning into MicroBlogging services like Twitter or Jaiku.
Why? because of the format. the format and the canvas is what makes conventional Blogging work right.
There are different levels of engagement, interaction and theme at play here.
MicroBlogging
Is all about the way you blog and the focus on what you blog being based on inmediacy, awareness and personal projection and the fact that the canvas where those opinions go is not important because what MicroBlogging did was getting rid of the canvas and place your voice into a river.
MicroBlogging is actually good for the state of the Blogosphere because it cuts out the noise and the crap.
People are no longer making as many blogs as before to say nothing or to say little, they have now rationalized that having a Blog is being able to not only say things but say them at a certain length and not just as bursts of Babble.
That is good right?. i think it is. then there is another perspective to have in count:
FastBlogging or Fast Blogging as you see fit say it is another kind of Blogging that does disrupts more into the regular Blogosphere that MicroBlogging does or ever will.
What is FastBlogging?
While being placed on the same view as twitter and Jaiku. services like Tumblr and Soup.io represent another new kind of Blogging (also referred as tumblelogging,just that in this very post i am judging them from a perspective of Blogging as the base from where they divert), because unlike Twitter and Jaiku where the way and the focus is based on inmediacy, awareness and personal projection and the canvas where those opinions go is not important because what MicroBlogging did was getting rid of the canvas (Your Blogging Platform, Your Blog Template, You Blog as online destination) and placing your voice into a River; FastBlogging is about changing the way and changing the canvas to refocus Blogging on a immediacy of use with a instantly flexible Canvas.
And even if FastBloggging posts are usually brief, they are not as brief as in microblogging or is implicit to them and they do can carry a theme just like any other blog.
I have used both Tumblr and Soup.io so i can see that they are not the same thing as having a Blog in a Blogging Platform like Blogger or Wordpress is.
They are FastBlogging Platforms because they have take away the complexities of entry even something we believed to be incredible as Blogger has. it leverages the way you blog content into it by serving Focused Functions into what you are blogging by giving you Automatic Post Templates. They let you decide what level of identity and representation you want to have in your Blog because the way you can edit a template in a instant to be just a River of Posts without Any Interaction or Add Modules, Widgets into it at the same speed,. something that is possible because the platform is designed to help you resolve most of the Blogging Work you have to do in a regular Platform like Blogger.
If you post a photo, thanks to the automatic templates, you only need the link of it, the same goes for the video that you usually embed into a post, or making a quote, sharing a link,etc.
FastBlogging Platforms also work more into the Social Web Idea because they are meant to let your merge services into them and then republish that content into your FastBlog.
And that is just if we refer to Tumblr. Soup.io is taking it even further by making possible to FastBlog without identity, without account, edit a template while you see it, let you do some Drag and Drop instant design, and the most important advancement in it is that there is not separated dashboard, your template is a live dashboard, the posts you write is moving WYSIWYG to be more literal than before as you see the post be filled into a post as you type it.
and finally the bending of the Rules of Blogetiquete, where in FastBlogging it is ok to Republish and Reblog what other said because the platform not only allows it but encourages it.
Back to Blogging
Of course that the advancements cited in MicroBlogging and FastBlogging will also get into regular Blogging platforms, but they will be integrated to a whole as a option in the same format we use now, not as the sole way to do so like in both MicroBlogging and FastBlogging.
So, these two new ways to Blog will not pose a threat to Blogging, Blogs will not go away as some say, and is more than Likely that regular Blogs will actually get to benefit from it in one way or another.
Even then, it is interesting to see how the Landscapes change and how Blogging Culture changes and adapt into new branches.
First there were Modular Blogging or Blogging Modules (where Blogging is a part of a larger platform and it only represented as a Scope or feature in it, like MySpace, LiveSpaces and even Facebook to some degree ) that reside in Social Networks and then this development of MicroBlogging and FastBloggging as a direct response or after effect to that.
But all of this means no change to you if your are already Blogging, as i said once and i will say again: "The Format is Everything" because everything else just revolves around it.
I don`t know if there was a line in the Blogger in Draft team 2008 resolutions that said they needed to release features in february that should have been in the latest Blogger Version Launch (v3.0). that is what one could think just from judging the last two Blogger Draft Features.
The latest is one that made more than one to leave Blogger in 2007:
Because Scheduled Posting importance increased a lot in 2007 as Blogging was getting more serious and more previous Old Media personalities drifted into Blogging. the reason is because while one of the principles of common blogging is inmediacy, another in Pro Blogging is "Journalistic Quality" (yeah, i know most don`t stand up to that). so there are Articles you just cannot write in one go, or that you just can`t post on the go and in the latest case, there are sometimes you are under embargo and cannot post something until the date of if passes (yeah, some bloggers don`t respect that either) and those are pretty much the biggest reasons why you would need scheduled posting.
But in average blogging terms, there is also another to have in count: Blog Flow.
Blog Flow is the periodicity you set yourself to Blog and that to some it is the easiest way to mantain a Blog.
So if you are used to post once a day from monday to friday, but sometimes you write two posts, you can easily schedule the latter post to cover for one of the days you are used to post.
Same goes for those that follow a theme and whose entries are long when they go on vacations, they can then easily leave the Blog Flow in automatic while they are gone if they don`t want to interrupt it.
Having said all that you can understand how strange and incredible it results that Blogger just now is testing that feature to add it to Blogger when some had it two years ago!.
The Blogger in Draft blog does detail how easy to use Scheduled posting is:
"Publishing a post in the future is pretty simple: in the post editor, reveal the Date and Time fields using the “Post Options” toggle and enter a post date and time that is in the future. When you then click the “Publish” button, your post will become “scheduled.” When the date and time of the post arrive, your post will be automatically published to your blog.Your 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."
Now,what happens to those who use Post into the Future as a way to have welcome post or adding a Widget or Element into blog?. that is resolved in the Additional notes:
"We know that some bloggers currently use future post dates in order to keep one post at the top of their blog for a while. Though we recommend that you use a Text page element for this, you can still get this old behavior with just one additional step. First, publish your post with the current date and time. This will publish it to your blog. Then, once it’s published, edit the post to change the date to 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"
"As with published posts, the post editor does not autosave scheduled posts if you go back and edit them. You wouldn’t want the post to publish while you’re in the middle of editing it! You can save the scheduled post as a draft to remove the scheduling and this will turn autosave back on"
"In some testing we’ve found that schedule posting is not working for some FTP blogs. If you run across this, please let us know in the comments so we can try to track it down" <--- (in other words? it has lots of bugs, so avoid using it now if you are a FTP Blogger user)
I understand that this is a Draft Blogger feature because it needs to be tested to ensure it works right for when it is deployed for everyone. but given you need to use the Draft Blogger Dashboard to use it, it is one of those Draft Blogger features that really needs to be put in the Fast Track for the regular Blogger.
Simple because the users that are going to use this feature the most usally don`t use just Blogger (one platform) so they use Blogging Editors like Windows Live Writer, Scribefire, Flock, Ecto or they also use their Phones to post.
via Blogger in Draft
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