Blogger is a
blog-
publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by
Pyra Labs, which was bought by
Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a
subdomain
of blogspot.com. Up until May 1, 2010 Blogger allowed users to publish
blogs on other hosts, via FTP. All such blogs had (or still have) to be
moved to Google's own servers, with domains other than blogspot.com
History
On August 23, 1999, Blogger was launched by
Pyra Labs. As one of the earliest dedicated
blog-publishing tools, it is credited for helping popularize the format. In February 2003, Pyra Labs was acquired by
Google
under undisclosed terms. The acquisition allowed premium features (for
which Pyra had charged) to become free. In October 2004, Pyra Labs'
co-founder,
Evan Williams, left Google. In 2004, Google purchased
Picasa; it integrated Picasa and its photo sharing utility
Hello into Blogger, allowing users to post photos to their blogs.
On May 9, 2004, Blogger introduced a major redesign, adding features such as
web standards-compliant templates, individual archive pages for posts, comments, and posting by
email. On August 14, 2006, Blogger launched its latest version in
beta,
codenamed "Invader", alongside the gold release. This migrated users to
Google servers and had some new features, including interface language
in French, Italian, German and Spanish.
[4]
In December 2006, this new version of Blogger was taken out of beta. By
May 2007, Blogger had completely moved over to Google operated servers.
Blogger was ranked 16 on the list of top 50 domains in terms of number
of unique visitors in 2007.
[5]
Redesign
As part of the Blogger redesign in 2006, all blogs associated with a
user's Google Account were migrated to Google servers. Blogger claims
that the service is now more reliable because of the quality of the
servers.
[6]
Along with the migration to
Google servers, several new features were introduced, including label organization, a
drag-and-drop template editing interface, reading permissions (to create private blogs) and new
Web feed options. Furthermore, blogs are updated dynamically, as opposed to rewriting
HTML files.
In a version of the service called Blogger in Draft,
[7] new features are tested before being released to all users. New features are discussed in the service's official blog.
[8]
Screenshot of blog post compose window of Blogger, April, 2012
In September 2009, Google introduced new features into Blogger as
part of its tenth anniversary celebration. The features included a new
interface for post editing, improved image handling,
Raw HTML Conversion, and other
Google Docs-based implementations, including:
- Adding location to posts via geotagging.
- Post time-stamping at publication, not at original creation.
- Vertical re-sizing of the post editor. The size is saved in a per-user, per-blog preference.
- Link editing in Compose mode.
- Full Safari 3 support and fidelity on both Windows and Mac OS.
- New Preview dialog that shows posts in a width and font size approximating what is seen in the published view.
- Placeholder image for tags so that embeds are movable in Compose mode.
- New toolbar with Google aesthetics, faster loading time, and "undo"
and "redo" buttons. Also added was the full justification button, a
strike-through button, and an expanded color palette.
In 2010, Blogger introduced new templates and redesigned its website.
The new post editor was criticized for being less reliable than its
predecessor.
[9]
Available languages
Blogger is available in these languages: Arabic, Bengali, Indonesia,
Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional),
Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Filipino, Finnish, French,
German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian,
Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Malayalam,
Marathi, Norwegian, Oriya, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil),
Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian,
Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese.
Available designs
Blogger allows its users to choose from various templates
available,and fully customize them. Users may also choose to create
their own template using CSS. The new design template, known as Dynamic
View, was introduced recently. It is built with AJAX, HTML5 and CSS3.
The time for loading is 40 percent shorter than traditional templates,
and allows user to present blog in seven different ways: classic,
flipcard, magazine, mosaic, sidebar, snapshot, and timeslide. Readers
still have the option to choose preferable views when the blog owner has
set a default view.
[10] Some of the widgets (e.g. Labels, Profile, Link List, Subscription Links, Followers
[11] and Blog Archive etc.) are available for Dynamic Views. Other templates are chosen by the
blogger.
Screenshot of blog post compose window of Blogger, April, 2012
Integration
- The Google Toolbar has a feature called "BlogThis!" which allows toolbar users with Blogger accounts to post links directly to their blogs.
- "Blogger for Word" is an add-in for Microsoft Word
which allows users to save a Microsoft Word Document directly to a
Blogger blog, as well as edit their posts both on- and offline. As of
January 2007, Google says "Blogger for Word is not currently compatible
with the new version of Blogger", and they state no decision has been
made about supporting it with the new Blogger.[12] However, Microsoft Office 2007 adds native support for a variety of blogging systems, including Blogger.
- Blogger supports Google's AdSense service as a way of generating revenue from running a blog.
- Blogger also started integration with Amazon Associates in December 2009, as a service to generate revenue.[13]
It was not publically announced, but by September 2011 it appeared that
all integration options had been removed and that the partnership had
ended.[14]
- Blogger offers multiple author support, making it possible to establish group blogs.
- Blogger offers a template editing feature, which allows users to customize the Blogger template.
- Windows Live Writer, a standalone app of the Windows Live suite, publishes directly to Blogger.
- Blogger Private Blog features:Blogger offers a private blog that can
be only access by author or invited readers /authors or admins only .
- Blogger can be optionlly integrated with Google +
Blogger on mobile devices
Blogger has launched mobile applications for users with mobile
devices. Users can post and edit blogs, and also share photos and links
on Blogger through their mobile devices. Not only advanced mobile
devices, such as smartphones, are being considered, since users can also
post blogs via traditional cell phones by SMS and MMS.
[15]
Screenshot of Blogger app on iOS
The major two mobile operation systems that Blogger focuses on are Android and iOS.
[16][17]
Blogger allow users to edit blogs anywhere through the app and either
publish the blogs or save them as drafts. Quick navigation from posts
and drafts is accessible from a list. Users can attach photos by taking a
picture with a Blogger app or selecting pictures from their photo
galleries. Sharing current locations on posts is also possible by
tabbing My Location bar and adding locations. Users can also share
photos and links directly to Blogger.
Limitations
Blogger has the following limitations on content storage and bandwidth, per user account:
[20]
- Blog description = 500 characters. HTML mark up not supported.
- Number of blogs = 100 blogs per account.
- Number of labels = 5000 unique labels per blog (increased from the original 2000), 20 unique labels per post
- Number of pictures (hyperlinked from user's Picasa Web Album) = Up to 1 GB of free storage
- Number of posts =There is no limit on the number of posts one can have in one blog.
- Size of pages = Individual pages (the main page of a blog or archive pages) are limited to 1 MB
- Size of pictures = If posted via Blogger Mobile, limited 300 KB per picture; posted pictures are scaled to 1600px[21]
- Stand-Alone Pages = Limited to 20 stand-alone pages.
- Team members (those who can write to a blog) = 100 invitations per blog.
On February 18, 2010,
[22]
Blogger introduced "auto-pagination", which limited the number of posts
that could be displayed on each page, often causing the number of posts
on the main page to be less than that specified by the user and leading
to a hostile response from some users.
[23][24]
Private blogs are limited to only 100 members. A member of Blogger's staff (Brett from Blogger) recently stated
[25] that Blogger's private blog limit is 100 readers is because
If someone wants a private blog, 9/10 it's illegal or suspicious. A
few people want one for legitimate purposes like medical support, but in
most cases it's to hide piracy at best and drug dealing or preying on
children at worst. We have to use staff to personally monitor every one
of our private blogs. They are costing us money right now and until
people stop making them to spread religious intolerance or preparing
arms for the violent overthrow of the government, we are not expanding
the number.
Most of the blogs appear harmless. But when we review each of the user's
activity on other Google networks, you will find the same people in the
blog membership all have related interests and at least one of them is
always of questionable legal nature at best. Smaller numbers are easier
to verify that the blog is being used safely and legally.
— Brett from Blogger (2011), Blogger Support
