Dear Blogger: a wish list

Fredrik Wacka sums up what all of us have been talking about for about two years (since Google took over Blogger). His open-letter to Google starts out with a statement we have heard over and over again here at Blogger Forum: "I have tried to find ways to switch from Blogger to another publishing system, but there are problems I'd like to avoid. So I figured I could try influencing you to improve Blogger instead."

Here's what Fredrik wants, and it's a short, reasonable list:

1. Categories -- it's standard in almost every other blog publishing system. Now that categories automate Technorati tagging too, I really need them.

2. An integrated TrackBack function -- it's an extra burden to do it manually, and I often skip that part I'm afraid. Give me Pingback too while you're at it. You don't have to be embarrassed that you didn't invent it. Who cares?

3. Comments that are as customizable as the rest of the templates. And please stop asking people to sign up for a Blogger account as your default option. It makes many choose not to comment (I use Haloscan instead).

Speaking of comments, take a look at some of the comments Fredrik's article has received from Blogger users.

Possible Blogger enhancements

Blogger has been quiet for quite some time on what will be next in the Blogger.com world. With the persistent problems in performance, Blogger users would first like to be assured that more effort is being put into developing a more stable and reliable base product.

However, there is talk about other enhancements in the development or "We're thinking about it" stage.

Here are some ideas that Blogger is looking into as reported in Computerworld:

Native image uploading. The ability to upload images directly through a native Blogger interface instead of through indirect methods.

Private groups. Although it is possible to password protect blogs with third-party products, Blogger does not support private blogs or private areas. This would allow Blogger users to control who can view their blogs.

Gmail integration. This would be a natural. However, everyone is a bit fuzzy at this point as to what integration would entail and exactly what benefits this would bring to Blogger and Gmail users.

Mobile Blogger. Google introduced the latest enhancement to Blogger last week, when it launched Blogger Mobile, a feature that lets users create a new blog and post to it from mobile devices. "There's lots of people walking around with little blogging appliances which others may call mobile phones." --Biz Stone

Using a blog for promotion

One of the busiest guys around and an expert at self-promotion is Phil Town. Phil is a motivational speaker and has a new book coming out on investing for the small investor.

Getting a book published is expensive and takes a good bit of time to get up and running. A blog, on the other hand, can be up and running in a day. Then it is just a matter of having something to say.

Phil apparently never has that problem. He is motivated. If you take a look at his site, http://www.philtown.typepad.com, you will notice a few things. First, he has a catchy tag-line that lets you know right away what the site is about: "I teach people how to get rich no matter what happens in the market. Rule #1 is: Don't lose money!"

Phil decided to use TypePad as his blog platform. Take a look at his blog and analyze his layout and how he presents information. Use your browser's ability (View, then Source in IE) to drill down to his source code to see how he has headings set up for the search spiders. Phrase-rich statements surrounded by "h2" get more attention from Google and the other engines than just plain text. One of his phrases is "I teach people how to get rich no matter what happens in the market." I have no doubt that within a short time his site will be on the first page of any search for combinations of that phrase.

Take a look at the site. It is rich source for learning how to set up a blog to promote yourself or your business.

Blogger Forum tries out Serendipity

Our own sample blog on Bloggerforum has always been on the Blogger.com platform. However, there are certainly many other platforms out there to choose from. So, how do you make a decision as to the best blog platform to trust your scribblings to?

Obviously you want something dependable, easy to use, and nice-looking. Oh, yes, also with all the bells and whistles chronically lacking with Blogger.com. We decided to run the same blog postings here in 3 platforms: Blogger, Serendipity, and the internal "News" module that is part of this site. Actually, the New section is, in essence, a blog and it works quite well.

As to the decision to run Serendipity as the third choice, that was almost a natural. Serendipity is extremely easy to install and run (you need your own server, however). It also has what Blogger lacks: categories, RSS feeds, calendar archives, themes you can change on the fly, plug-ins, etc. etc.

We will be running our sample blog in both Blogger and Serendipity for the immediate future so folks can see a side-by-side comparison. We may add other blog platforms. Also, we will have our "Blog" tab give you a choice of which blog you want to see. Meanwhile, you can see the blog in two places (besides our own News section). Our Blogger based blog, and our Serendipity based blog. Enjoy.

Blogger reveals juicy Disney tidbits

Blogger Jim Hill has been blogging about Disney for years at www.jimhillmedia.com. Although Disney is his favorite subject, Mickey and his friends probably were not terribly happy with everything Jim had to say about the Disney corporate world on his site. Things got a bit nasty when Jim blogged on the the well-known dispute over management:

Hill butted heads with the multimedia giant once before, at the 2004 shareholders' meeting in Philadelphia. Hill, who had been covering the leadership battle between Disney chief executive Michael Eisner and Roy Disney, was quoted in a Wall Street Journal article accompanied by a sketch of him. When he arrived at the meeting, Hill said company officials pulled his credentials. The incident happened in front of the press corps and he was on cable news the next day. Then as now, Hill's blog saw a Space Mountain-size spike in hits. Chicago Sun-Times

Hill ran into problems more recently because of an unofficial Disneyland tour he was arranging through his blog.

Once again, this demonstrates that it pays to find your blogging niche if you want to develop a large following.

Serendipity .8 released

One of the best and most overlooked blogging platforms out there was upgraded on April 15.

Finally, after about 8 months of hard development and 6 beta releases the Serendipity Team is proud to finally release version 0.8 of Serendipity.

Many new and important features have been introduced, the core code has been made much more flexible, our code is polished up and many bugs and security issues were addressed.

Serendipity is one of my top five blog software programs. Take a look HERE for a list of the many features and then download a copy for yourself. It's free and it's good.

Is your blog PC?

Politically correct, that is.

Do you have an obligation to make your blog accessible to the handicapped? What if a blind person wants to read your blog. Do you have a way to reasonably accommodate your blind readers? It isn't as far-fetched as you might think. Southwest Airlines has already been sued because they have not made their Website accessible to the blind.

This isn't the first lawsuit alleging that the ADA applies to the Internet. In 1999, the National Federation of the Blind sued AOL alleging that its service was inaccessible to blind users. Earlier this year, Access Now sued Barnes & Noble and Claire's Stores alleging that both websites violated the ADA. Both cases settled out of court. WiredNews

But here's the question I've not been able to get answered after looking at these pending lawsuits: how exactly do you make a site accessible to the blind? I mean, come on, what technology are we expected to employ?

Apparently, all you have to do to be able to sue is make the claim that a site discriminates simply by virtue of the fact that the visually impaired cannot see it. So what suggestions are made for ways to make the Internet accessible to those who cannot see it? None that I can find. I suppose if you required all Web site to have streaming audio for everything that is displayed, including audio descriptions of all graphics, maybe that could work. Of course, it could also put the Web pretty much out of business as ways to handle the bandwidth demands and the expense are dealt with.

"Blogger sucks" gets 6,500 Google hits

Despite some claims that searching on "blogger sucks" (with the quote marks) will get 700,000 hits, the point is still well taken. The fact that Blogger is getting so much bad press should prompt the Blogger/Google folks to take some action.

It's getting a little nasty out there.

In a post called "Blogger Stinks," Ryan McReynolds, who shares his views on life, God, intimacy, politics and media philosophy, wrote: "I'm getting really tired of all the glitches and hiccups of Blogger. You may have noticed double posts at times on this blog. That's because you never know whether clicking something on Blogger will actually accomplish what is intended. Lately it seems like clicking does nothing but bring up a 'document contains no data.' Maddening." --WiredNews

Fake Windows update circulating

There is apparently an email campaign going on to infect your computer with a new virus.

The legitimate looking email seems to come from Microsoft and invites the reader to go to the Microsoft update site to get access to the latest security updates. The site seems to be a good copy of Microsoft's Web site and lures the visitor into downloading a Windows security patch.

But should unsuspecting users download the bogus patches, they will infect their computers with the Troj/DSNX-05 Trojan horse, according to Sophos. That, in turn, will let the attackers remotely take control of the infected PC. ZDNet

Microsoft is quick to point out that they never contact users by email for security updates.

Gmail goes to 2 gigs

Google announced recently that the one gigabyte storage limit for Gmail will be increased to two gigabytes.

Of course, the big question is "When is Gmail going to be public?"

Makes you wonder why they keep improving the service, but make people beg to get invitations to use the service. Wouldn't it make more sense to move out of the "beta" stage before doubling the storage? Google will not discuss when, or even if, Gmail will be public.

Asked whether access to Gmail accounts would ever be totally open, Harik declined to answer. "We keep looking for ways to make it more broadly available to people who want to use it," he said. --PCWorld Australia