A few posts ago we let you know about Blogger Following. The feature lets readers publicly subscribe to your blog (so you know who's reading) and adds a Reading List to your Blogger Dashboard so readers can stay updated with the blogs they follow.

Now it's available to all users in English. We'll keep you updated about when we launch it in Blogger's other languages.

To learn more about Following, read the Blogger Buzz Post or the Google Blog Post.

For more than a year, you have been able to view all the photos you've uploaded to your blog in Picasa Web Albums. It's been good -- having a dedicated photo management interface comes in handy when you want to do things like embed Blogger photos elsewhere on the web, order prints, create slideshows, and so on.

Today, Picasa Web Albums has undergone a significant redesign, and is launching a slew of new features to help you better organize and enjoy your photos, including all of your Blogger Photos. Along with a much-refined interface, there's a powerful new 'name tags' feature that helps organize your photo collection based on who's in each picture. For fun, check out the new Explore page, or take a look at the Recent Photos stream (unabashedly inspired by Blogger Play).

Oh, and one more thing: If you use Picasa (the client software) to edit and organize all the photos on your PC, we're happy to report that Picasa's venerable 'BlogThis!' button still sits front-and-center in the next generation of Picasa software, which also launches today as Picasa 3 (beta). If you've never tried it before, now's a great time to start -- Picasa 3 includes plenty of new photo-editing goodies that can make your blog's pictures look better, like a powerful retouch tool, greatly revamped photo-collage and slideshow creators, simple video editing, desktop/web sync, and more. To learn more, swing by the Google Photos blog.

Would you like to know who enjoys reading your blog? Or stay updated with your favorite blogs right from your Blogger dashboard? You can do those things and more with Blogger’s new Following feature.
For more details about what we've launched, check out the help articles here:

• What is Following?
• How do I add the Followers gadget to my blog?
• How do I use the Blogger Reading List?
• Following a Blog Publicly vs. Anonymously

The big news for this release is following, but we’ve snuck a few other fixes in since last time:

• As reported on Blogger Buster (and elsewhere), the 3rd party Add Widget API was broken. It has been fixed.
• The new button style appears clickable in all browers.
• The Blog List widget can show thumbnails specified in Media RSS feeds.
• Atom feeds now include the blog’s description as the <subtitle> element.
  

We’ve added a few new features and things in today’s release:

• There’s a new look for the Blogger Dashboard, which we think you’ll find more attractive and functional. If you have a ton of blogs (as we do) try out the “hide” and “show all” links to help manage the list.
• Google Gadgets in your Layouts blog can now set their height automatically (if the gadget author supports it). Read more about adding Google Gadgets to your blog.
• AdSense page elements can now optionally have image ads. We’ve found image ads have a higher click-through rate, so you might get more money if you turn them on. 
  
• We wrote up a Features page to help you keep track of everything you can do with Blogger. Take a look and see if you’ve been missing out on something cool.
• The Flag Blog button in the Blogger navbar now pops up a window for you to tell us why you think the blog violates our terms of service. Flag Blog is always handled exclusively by human reviewers, not the automated spam locking system, so this information will better help them decide what, if any, action should be taken.
  

And also fixed some bugs, including:

• Fixed Moto template header overlap in IE7.
• Blocked the /feedReaderJson URL from web crawlers, to reduce 404s in Webmaster Tools.
• Increased cacheability of CSS and JavaScript throughout Blogger, for faster page loads.
• Button style and layout improvements throughout Blogger.

Babies are all the buzz at Blogger. Within the last few months we've had three new additions to the Blogger Team: Ryan, Aditya, and Haley. Although it'll probably be a few years before they start sounding off themselves, we get to post some cute pics of them now.

You knew that already, and now we do too. We have now restored all accounts that were mistakenly marked as spam yesterday. (See: Spam Fridays)

We want to offer our sincerest apologies to affected bloggers and their readers. We’ve tracked down the problem to a bug in our data processing code that locked blogs even when our algorithms concluded they were not spam. We are adding additional monitoring and process checks to ensure that bugs of this magnitude are caught before they can affect your data.

At Blogger, we strongly believe that you own and should control your posts and other data. We understand that you trust us to store and serve your blog, and incidents like this one are a betrayal of that trust. In the spirit of ensuring that you always have access to your data, we have been working on importing and exporting tools to make it easier to back up your posts. If you'd like a sneak peek at the Import / Export tool, you can try it out on Blogger in Draft.

Our restoration today was of all blogs that were mistakenly marked as spam due to Friday's bug. Because spam fighting inherently runs the risk of false positives, your blog may have been mis-classified as spam for other reasons. If you are still unable to post to your blog today you can request a review by clicking Request Unlock Review on your Dashboard.

While we wish that every post on this blog could be about cool features or other Blogger news, sometimes we have to step in and admit a mistake.

We've noticed that a number of users have had their blogs mistakenly marked as spam, and wanted to sound off real quick to let you know that, despite it being Friday afternoon, we are working hard to sort this out. So to those folks who have received an email saying that your blog has been classified as spam and can't post right now, we offer our sincere apologies for the trouble.

We hope to have this resolved shortly, and appreciate your patience as we work through the kinks.

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.

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.
  

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 blogs, 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

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.

Update: This was an April Fools Day post. :)

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Today we’d like to offer you a sneak peek at an exciting new product we’ve been working on: Google Weblogs.

Since Google bought Pyra Labs in 2002, we’ve been dreaming, planning, and implementing the next revolution in personal publishing: Google Weblogs.

Google Weblogs, or “GWeblogs,” or “Gblogs,” which will launch later this year in a public beta, is the next revolution in personal publishing. Here’s what you can expect:

• Don’t limit yourself to “reverse chronological” publishing. Our advanced Google algorithms put your best content at the top of your blog. Even if your later work goes downhill your previous posts will still shine.
• No more template languages to mess with or sidebars to get right. Our advanced Google algorithms automatically populate your blog’s sidebar with the most relevant possible content.
• Stop worrying about your PageRank or your search engine optimization. Post directly into Google search results for maximum visibility.
• Save your readers time and effort. We’ll automatically extract the most relevant sentence from your post for the index page, along with any necessary ellipsis. We'll also put some words in bold!
• Your blog’s header will stay fresh with new images from our team of artists, each and every anniversary of a scientific achievement.
• Unsure of what to post about? Just click “I’m Feeling Lucky” and we’ll “take care” of the rest!
  

Excited? So are we! Take a look at this sneak peek of Blogger Buzz, powered by Google Weblogs.

We’ve put together a quick video tour to take you through the highlights of Google Weblogs. Check it out!

For all you visual learners who want to add features to your blog, but don't have the patience to browse our help articles, we've created the new Blogger Help YouTube Channel. There you can find videos that show you step by step how to use Blogger features.

There are only a few videos at the moment, and we've decided to start with the basics:

• How to Create a Blog with Blogger
• Purchasing and Setting Up a Custom Domain through Blogger
• Adjusting Your Blogger Privacy Settings

In the coming months we'll be adding more videos. If you have a suggestion for a video you'd like to see, let us know by posting in our Help Group. In addition, you can give us feedback on each video's comment form. We're always trying to find new and better ways to help you use Blogger and we appreciate the feedback - thanks!

Going to be in Austin for this year’s South by Southwest festival? That makes several of us!

Blogger is once again rocking it out at Club de Ville [map] with delicious snacks, an open bar, Blogger Play, and our SXSW staple: climate-inappropriate schwag.

The party starts at 9:30PM this Sunday and goes until 2AM on Monday.

You’ll need an invitation to get in the door. Members of the Blogger team will be at the Interactive conference, so just stop anyone you see wearing a Blogger logo and ask. If it’s one of us, you’ll get an invitation. If it’s someone else, you’ll still make a new Blogger-loving friend.

Want more drinking on Google’s dime? Come to these parties:

Google Party
Light Bar [map]
Saturday, 6PM–8PM
(This would be a pretty sure place to find invitations to the Blogger party as well.)

OpenSocial OpenBar
McCormick & Schmick’s (back room) [map]
Monday, 6PM–8PM

See you there!

With GrandCentral, a free service from Google, you can receive phone calls and post voicemails right on your blog. Though GrandCentral is currently in a private beta test, bloggers can skip the wait and get a free account immediately. Sign up now

WebCall Button
When you add GrandCentral’s WebCall button to your blog, your readers can easily call your phone or leave voicemails without ever seeing your telephone number.

You can screen calls, either accepting them or sending them to voicemail, and you can even block unwanted callers altogether. Learn how to add a WebCall button to your blog, and try it out for yourself below:


Voicemail Inbox


Your voicemail is all kept in a visual online inbox that is easy to manage. Store as many as you like for as long as you like, or post them to your blog so anyone can hear them. Here’s what it looks like to put a voicemail on your blog:


Sign Up Now
Ready to get started? Follow these links:

1. Sign up for GrandCentral for free
2. Add a WebCall button to your sidebar
3. Post your voicemails to your blog
   

I'm saddened to have to do this yet again, but today we're saying our collective goodbyes to Graham Waldon, one of the longest-serving members of the Blogger team at Google. I was fortunate enough to have interviewed Graham before he joined us back in 2003, and after a few minutes of chatting I immediately knew he was our guy.

Over the years Graham’s provided amazingly patient and exemplary service to Blogger’s users, and set an impossibly high bar with his work — from constantly improving Blogger’s Help site, to personally answering countless help emails, to digging up fantastic Blogs of Note, to training new members of the Support team. He’s even moonlighted a bit, helping the Reader team with their support efforts!

Best of luck, Graham — it looks like you’ll be keeping plenty busy during the coming months, but be sure to swing by for lunch every now and then. ;)

- Eric and the rest of the Blogger team

This is a quick post to announce that, in addition to Blogger’s recent improvements and fixes, we are now available in Filipino.

There is already a very strong blogging community in the Philippines, and we’re very happy to support that and be a part of it. Want a taste? Start with our friend Aileen and keep clicking!