Blogger Adds a Set of Powerful New Features

Blgoger, the blog platform owned by Google, has released a set of new features that affect both bloggers using the non-beta and beta (Draft) versions of the service.

New Features for “Regular” Blogger:

• On the Blogger Features page, as well as the announcement post, these updates port the (previously draft) version of the Blogger Dashboard to the non-beta version, adding “hide” and “show all” to the list of blogs.
• Google Gadgets in your layouts blog now automatically resize based on the size of the gadget, if the gadget supports that feature.
• Adding image ads becomes easier through AdSense, as you can select to have image ads displayed over traditional contextual advertisements.  
• The Flag Blog button in the navbar now pop-ups a window for you to tell the Blogger team why the blog violates our terms of service.  This comes after many blogs were marked as spam, so this button allows a set of human viewers to review the blog, which is not handled by the automated spam locking system.

Bug Fixes:

• Moto template overlap in Internet Explorer 7.
• Block of the /feedReader Json URL from web crawlers, reducing the number of 404s in the Webmaster Tools area. 
• Increased cacheable CSS and JavaScript throughout Blogger, which may increase page load speeds.
• Button style and layout improvements throughout the system.

A Review of All Features:

• Easily publish and create a blog using the system.
• A simple-to-use interface
• Free website using the Blogspot.com domain name.
• Easily customize your template.
• Add photos and videos to your post.
• Feedback from readers through comments.
• New post notifications.
• One simple ID to sign into your account.
• Support for more than forty-one languages.
• Posting on the go through the use of mobile blogging and MMS.
• Group blogging with the use of privacy control.
• Third-party application support.

New Features for Blogger in “Draft”:

A review of these features is available on this post.

• Better show/hide controls in the Blogger Dashboard area, with post count and Blogs of Note.
• New Post Editor - Edit HTML mode now has a toolbar for quickly editing the code of posts, the Compose toolbar now has a fifth font size, plus “Normal” should now more correctly match the font size on your blog.  In addition, images will correctly display in relation to the border styles from your blog’s template.
• Import and Export - Basic settings are now saved and restored, templates (Classic and Layouts) are saved and restored, exporting a blog will cause the XML file to download in Safari, and import blog messaging now distinguishes between published and draft posts.
• Reactions - Receive one-click feedback from readers using this feature, as they can customize which reactions are displayed.  For example, the Blogger in Draft Blog uses “useful”, “not useful”, “buggy”, and “shippit”, which allow you greater control over quick feedback, in addition to the newly rolled-out star ratings system.  
  You will need to go to the Blogger in Draft panel and add this feature in from the Layouts>Configure Blog Posts area.  You can customize the words/background based on the color of your blog, similar to the Blogger navbar.  
  People using Classic templates will not be able to use this feature until you upgrade to Layouts.  There are a few recognized bugs.

Features of Blogger
Click image for larger view.

Conclusion

While I try not to post all insignificant announcements, this is a fairly significant roll-out of new features for people using the Blogger blog publishing system (which is quite a significant amount).  Along with the recent announcement of Movable Type Pro and Version 4.2, the evolution of blog systems is continuing at a rapid pace, allowing you to create a fully customizable social publishing platform.  Previously, these systems were essentially created for publishing textual thoughts and a few images here and there.  Today, nearly everything has changed.

It is good to see that Blogger continues to evolve, considering that it is one of the two to three major blog systems.  Although it shouldn’t be recognized as the best, it is certainly looking, with this recent release of features, that the team is working on features that bloggers are looking for, instead of simply trying to persuade more bloggers to crowd their blog with AdSense advertisements.