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.

These features were all announced on June 26th, 2008.

General Features Affecting Blogger in Draft

1. Blogger in Draft dashboard may now be set as the default area when signing in.
2. Google Gadget integration improved, with better editing of gadget preferences.
3. Dashboard area improved with new tweaks, including a new button style - “show all blogs’ toggle is now sticky.
4. Subscribe page element had “www.” added.
5. Blogger Dashboard now displays recent posts (in tabbed fashion) from both the regular and draft Blogger blogs.

Webmaster Tools Verification

[Source Post]

• This feature allows you to use Google Webmaster Tools with your Blogger blog.  You are now able to view information about your blog as Google’s search engine sees it - how often Google’s web crawlers visit your site, who links to your blog, what searches are used to find your site, and control how your page appears in the web results.
• These settings can be found by visiting the Blogger in Draft dashboard, then click on on the link to Webmaster Tools, found under the “Tools and Resources” area.  All your blogs are added to Webmaster Tools and verified automatically.

Star Ratings

[Source Post]

• You can now (without external tools) add star ratings to every post footer.  Enabling this feature is easy - go into the Layouts page and click the “Edit” link of the posts page and check “Show Star Ratings”.
• More notes on this feature can be found on the release post, linked above. 

Importing and Exporting

[Source Post]

• Another great feature, importing and exporting allows you to backup all your posts and comments into a single, Atom-formatted XML file, which allows easier backup.  
• You can then use the backups to import them back into your blog if you accidentally delete something or you blog is hacked.  
• To use the feature, go to the Settings > Formatting page, then go into the Blog Tools links area and either import or export your blog’s XML file.
• Upon importing, all the posts will become saved as “imported”, so you can choose which ones will be published.  
• Other Abilities: Merge two or more blogs into one, move individual posts from blog to blog, back up your blog to your own storage, move your blog somewhere else.
• Problems: Doesn’t backup blog settings or templates, can be confusing for first-time users fearing their data may be lost.

Embedded Comment Form

[Source Post]

• Comment forms can now display below posts, much like other blog systems.
• Change the format of your comments by going into the Settings > Comments area and choose either “Full Page”, “Pop-up Window”, or “Embedded below post”.  
• Works as normal with any other features, such as verification, that you may have enabled.

New Post Editor

[Source Post]

• New post editor is “more stable, compatible, predictable, and functional”.
• Focuses on image and raw HTML improvements
• Note: Autosave is disabled in the new post editor.
• Improved image handling - images appear as a thumbnail in the image dialog box, allowing you to upload several images at once, and then add them into your post at your convenience.
• Images will be placed at the cursor insertion point, instead of at the top of the post and drag and drop functionality is now enabled.
• Easy image resizing and removing.  (issues for Firefox 3 - need to double click to activate)
• Improved Raw HTML - allows you to insert breaks distinguishing different elements - tables, lists, scripts, styles, preformatted blocks, or objects, whereas before a
tag would have been inserted.  You can turn this feature off, a similar feature is available in WordPress.
• Other Features: Easy link editing, full Safari 3 support (Windows and Macintosh), new preview dialog for viewing posts in a similar format as what would appear on your blog, placeholder image for object tags.
• There are numerous missing features - spellcheck, video upload, Hindi transliteration, Bi-directional text controls, Toolbar for Edit HTML mode, FTP file upload, and enclosures, as well as Known Issues, so if you are uncomfortable using Beta tools, you may want to continue using the default editor.

Please use the “Source Post” links to view images and additional details about each feature, this post serves as an outline of them and a few of my thoughts.

Conclusion, Final Thoughts

I have taken a look at many of these features, and for the most part, they are performing as they were meant to, with some bugs here and there.  Each of these advancements helps the Blogger system distinguish itself from others, and improve the blogging experience for people who are just beginning to blog. From what I see, the Blogger team appears to be working more on usability and smaller features that puts it in line with other blog platforms and allow more flexibility for people using their own domains.

Leave your thoughts on these new enhancements (if you have chosen to use Blogger in Draft), whether you like them or would rather see more improvements to what is already included.

To take advantage of the feature, follow these simple steps:

1. Sign in to your account and enter into a post.
2. Click the ‘Post Options’ toggle to show the “Post date and time” fields.
3. Type a date and time that’s in the future.
4. Hit the “Publish” button, and the post will become “scheduled”, and will be published when the date has been reached.

When a service comes out of “beta” mode, it typically means that the version has been tested and will work properly for most users.  This new feature is a great addition to Blogger.  As an avid WordPress users, this is a necessary feature for extending the possibilities of blogging when you are unable to blog at certain periods of time.

For more details about posting with this new feature, read the Blogger Buzz Blog.

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.

[via Blogger Buzz]

To preview the new features, you must sign into your Blogger/Google account and go to the Layout area of the blog you wish to edit, then click “Add Gadget” to bring up the list of gadgets (more than 50,000 user-added and Google-developed tools).  Browsing through them to find the particular widget you are looking for is extremely easy.  Simply use the search box or use the sidebar - divided into Basics, Featured, Most Popular, and Newest and further by categories - News, Tools, Communications, Fun & Games, Finance, Sports, Lifestyle, and Technology.

When this feature comes out of Beta, many bloggers will likely take advantage of the new layout and features as it makes the process much simpler and there is no need to go to another site or do hundreds of searches for the particular widget you are looking for.  On October 26, 2007, the Blogger team announced that they were going to be better integrating Google Gadgets with Blogger.

The “Basics” area takes the place of the current Page Elements window.

These tutorials and news stories are must reads.

8 Steps to a More Professional BlogSpot Blog [via Blogging Pro]

In this post, Download Squad brought together a collection of the best ways for people using Blogger to get started and how to perform basic steps, leading to a more professional-looking blog, including:

• How to back up your work/blog
• Eliminating the navigational toolbar
• Creating a tag cloud from your label list
• Adding a contact box and “About Me” page
• How to place ads and other content between posts
• Trying out Blogger’s beta features with Blogging in Draft
• Choosing a new template
• Registering and transferring your blog to your own domain

I found the post simple enough that new bloggers would be able to use it to create a better blog, while other “power bloggers” will already know how to do the tasks.

Controlling Archives (WP-Fun)

A short guide has been put together for gaining more control over how your archives are displayed, such as how many months to go back in the past and the format in which the archives are displayed.

WordPres 2.3 to 2.5 Database Changes (Weblog Tools Collection)

This post contains important information regarding the upcoming release of WordPress 2.5 about the database schema changes. If you are a theme/WordPress developer or require backing up your blog on the backend, it is important to do so before the upgrade.

10 Things You Need to Know About WordPress 2.5 (Technosailor)

Aaron Brazell of Technosailor has put together an intuitive guide to the changes in WordPress 2.5 - the amazing new features from the admin interface to the visual editor improvements to the Flash uploader. Another must-read for WordPress users looking forward to added enhancements.

On February 12th, a number of bug fixes and updates were released. 

Updates Included:

• Changing the OpenID provider became clearer with highlights/images from more popular services - displayed on the contact form.
• Five more languages were added.
• Posts with more than 200 have been split across multiple pages. 
• The “Template” tab has been renamed “Layouts” for blogs using layouts.

Bug Fixes Included:

• Better translations for the Persian language, other BiDi layout fixes.
• Incorrect label counts bug was fixed.
• Now supports Safari 3 when using Layouts template editor pages.
• Post editor is optimized with a faster loading speed.
• More international support in the post editor’s date and time fields.
• Picasa’s BlogThis! button is now compatible.

However, despite these fixes and new updates, bloggers should be aware that Classic templates will not be able to use the comment pagination feature, and the “Shrink to Fit” only affects new photo uploads in the Header and Picture Page elements.

“Blogger in Draft” Additions

In order to use these features, you must sign in to Blogger in Draft and use it like any other beta service.

February 12th New Feature: Blog List

The Blog List feature allows you to feature a list of your favorite blogs, with an optional icon, but with Google Reader functionality.  When using a blog with an Atom or RSS feed, the blog list can show the date of the blog’s last update or even the title and snippet of its most recent post.

Additional options of the widget include how many blogs to show in the list and whether they should be updated by time or alphabetically by blog title, the ability to import Google Reader subscriptions, and automatic searching for RSS/Atom feeds.

This feature is great for bloggers that would have had to style their blog rolls with their own images or build their own widget to include the same overall effect as this.

The Blog List writes all links out in HTML instead of JavaScript, so you pass PageRank goodness on to the blogs you link to.  While this may be good for community-based blogs, larger blogs and those concerned about SEO may not find this as friendly.  In addition, this is similar to the BlogRush widget that became popular over the past several months, yet different in other ways.  Visitors may find other blogs in your Blog List more appealing than yours, losing a potential returning visitor.

Comments have suggested some problems related to adding feeds, renaming them, or simply adding the widget (and its position).

More features to Blogger blogs may be added in the future, indicated with the line:

Only the blog admin who added the Blog List may edit and configure it. Why is that? You’ll find out later…

February 15th New Feature: Scheduled Posts

A feature that many wanted added to the new Blogger after it was relaunched is the ability to write a post and then publish it in the future.  The only way that this could be achieved before this update was if you placed a future date in the date field, then it would be displayed at the top of the page, which wasn’t very functional.

To publish a post in the future, simply reveal the date and time fields using the “Post Options” toggle link and enter a post date and time in the future.  The post will automatically be published to your blog when the scheduled post date arrives.

There are currently some issues with the advanced posting feature, which have been better addressed on their blog such as problems with bloggers using FTP.

Amanda Fazani of Blogger Buster has released her first eBook - The Cheats’ Guide to Customizing Blogger Templates. It was released in conjunction with the tips that she presents on her blog and a previous article.

I looked over the 53-page eBook and I was impressed; it presents pertinent information for bloggers using Google’s Blogger service. The guide is laid out in a very organized fashion - included is a table of contents and index, and everything is placed into an appropriate chapter. You’ll first learn how to customize fixed width templates - ranging from making a new header for your blog, using background images, to highlighting the main section. Chapter 2 was designed for users wanting to customize stretch templates with topics going into detail on how to create custom headers, changing the background image, and other subtopics, all explained in a logical manner.

Chapters 3 through 5 contain tips to help you customize the sidebar - adding background colors to the sidebar, sidebar headers, and adding borders to sidebar headings (Chapter 3), creating CSS and clickable buttons and banners, and adding style to posts with images (Chapter 4), and finally, Chapter 5 features several resources both on the Blogger Buster site and elsewhere for customizing your Blogspot blog.

In review, this is a great eBook for a majority of beginner bloggers to use - download it and link to it on your desktop for quick reference.

All of the templates and images used in the eBook can be downloaded via an optional download folder.

Cost: Free
Format: PDF
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported
Links: Post containing download links

A timeline of events:

January 2008

What new enhancements will Blogger announce in January?

December 2007

December 13 - OpenID commenting added - meaning that your friends and readers can leave authenticated comments on your blog using their blog URLs from OpenID-enabled services such as WordPress.com, LiveJournal, and AOL/AIM.

December 20 - Fixes for unregistered commenters and cropped header images were fixed.

November 2007

November 2 - AdSense video units released, letting you include relevant YouTube videos on your blog and make money from them.

November 19 - Slideshow page element added - letting you add a slick little slideshow of your photos from Picasa Web Albums, Flickr, Photobucket, or any other site that supports media RSS.

November 26 - A tutorial was created to help bloggers who want to post videos to their blog via YouTube.

October 2007

October 4 and 8 - Blogger encourages bloggers to participate in Blog Action Day and to support DonorsChoose.

October 12 - An iGoogle gadget is added for the Blogger play feature.

October 25 - Subscribe to comments via email feature added, making it a lot easier to stay in the conversational look after you’ve commented on a post somewhere.

September 2007

September 13 - Foxy Tunes adds Blogger support - allowing you to add your favorite music to your blog and adding more interactivity for bloggers.

September 14 - Blogger Play launched, which shows you a never-ending stream of images that were just uploaded to public Blogger blogs.

August 2007

August 7 - Browse other users profiles to find other bloggers who share your interests such as occupation, industry, location, interests, favorite books, movies, music, etc.

August 23 - Blogger turns eight years old, and a new iGoogle gadget present is added for the Blogs of Note.

August 24 - Video uploading to Blogger is added, making it much easier for bloggers to upload videos and create video podcasts.

August 28 - AdSense ads can now be shown inside your block of blog posts, up to three times on the main blog page using inline ads.

August 31 - Blogger clarifies an issue that users were having with malware and the mail2blogger email addresses, infecting their computer’s address books and then posting the spam mail to their blog.

July 2007

July 9 - Twitter releases a new web badge to easily display your Twitter updates in your blog’s sidebar.

July 11 - Polls feature comes out of draft and is now an official page element. FeedBurner users now can specify a URL to which Blogger will redirect your feed’s traffic.

June 2007

June 12 - Blogger clients updated including Windows Live Writer - adding labels support and Mac’s MarsEdit software added photo upload support via Picasa Web Albums. Blogger Dashboard widget fixed for Mac users.

June 13 - An experimental version of Blogger, Blogger in draft was released, with Video Upload as the first feature added.

June 27 - Seventeen new languages added to the list of nineteen already existing with a new dropdown menu. Blogger in draft added new features such as polls - which you can add to your blog sidebars and enclosures - which turns your blog feeds into pod/video-casts.

May 2007

May 4 - Old Blogger is completely removed, with all new accounts finally switched over to New Blogger, unless you want to manually revert back (using HTML only themes).

May 11 - Blogger Data API Developer Guide updated, with new sections covering development in several of the available client libraries.

May 17 - Autosaving of draft posts in the Blogger post editor is integrated. The page will periodically send a copy of the text,title, labels, etc. to the Google servers about once a minute, unless you type a lot. Keyboard shortcuts are also revamped.

May 21 - Although not directly related to the development of Blogger, they announced that they will pay people up to $100 simply for playing with Blogger for an hour or so.

May 22 - A screencast was made by Ryanne, which is a tutorial for adding a header to a blog using the new feature.

April 2007

April 11 - Support for eight new languages added including Nederlands, Türkçe, Dansk, Norsk, Svenska, suomi, and others, bringing the total to nineteen.

April 12 - Hindi transliteration feature added enabling users to type out Hindi words using phonetically equivalent Enlgish script transformed into the corresponding Devanagari script.

April 16 - One Thousandth ‘Blog of Note’ announced. The Blogs of Note is a project started more than five years ago highlighting interesting blogs for others to discover.

March 2007

March 1 - Google Blog Search (within Blogger) had some slight changes to its look and feel - making it more consistent with the Google styling. Date-restrict functionality added to find blog articles posted within a certain period of time.

March 2 - Google Blogger gblogger using the Google Data API allows users to blog from within the comfort of a full-featured editing environment.

March 8 - Picasa Web Albums integrated into Blogger. Each blog now has its own album in Picasa, which can now be used as a photo manager for your blog.

March 30 - Newsreel and Video Bar added to the template widgets displaying Google News results for your chosen keywords and videos from the Google Video and Youtube library based on your keywords.

February 2007

February 1 - Blogger adds an API for adding a custom widget to a blog, which bloggers can then add to other blogs.

January 2007

January 5 - The ability to blog using a custom domain for serving your blog was added, adding the ability to blog from mysite.com instead of mysite.blogspot.com. Using this service, you can now brand your blog even more using free hosting and a domain.

December 2006

December 19 - Blogger comes out of beta and the new version of Blogger is released. New features including drag-and-drop template editing and posts labels as well as a better-designed Dashboard and easier comment adding.

[via Blogger Buzz]