Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Blogger

Google Revamps Blogger

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:31:42 +0000

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has updated blog service Blogger.com. It has been a few years since Google changed around the look and feel with Blogger. Blogger’s entire editing and management experience has been re-written from scratch so that it is faster and more efficient.

When you are in the dashboard or settings page of Blogger.com, you can always create or edit posts using one click at the top of the screen. The post editor has been expanded and simplified to give you a large canvas for drafting and previewing work.

In the Overview section of your dashboard, you can find out how people are reacting to your content in a graphic form. You can also see recent traffic numbers, comment activity, and follower counts. Gradually the new Blogger user interface will be rolled out to all users.

[Blogger Buzz]

Klout Now Measures Influence from 10 Different Networks

Riley Kennysmith — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:30:22 +0000

Today is a big day for Klout. The social influence calculator just added five new networks to its algorithms, bringing their measurement possibilities to 10 total networks. Adding Tumblr, Blogger, Flickr, Last.fm and Instagram to the already-included Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and YouTube means that some Klout users are about to see a huge jump in their scores. The staff blog reminds users that “connecting an account will never lower your Score, but it may increase it as we can give you credit for your influence in that network.” TechCrunch notes that Google+ is still missing from the list but that it should be on its way soon.

Klout measures social networking influence based on users’ interactions with their followers and friends, on a scale from 1 to 100. Linking new networks to an account doesn’t immediately improve one’s Klout score, and Klout hasn’t explained exactly how the new networks will be calculated. I’m curious as to how (or whether) Klout will include scores for users who have multiple blogs with Blogger or Tumblr.

Google Plans to Rebrand Picasa and Blogger

Riley Kennysmith — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 19:56:37 +0000

Mashable reports that they have exclusive information from Google: Picasa and Blogger will be renamed Google Photos and Google Blogs. Google is making definite efforts to unify their brand identity, and the independently named products are getting a makeover that will integrate both platforms with Google+. Google has previously renamed other acquired services, rebranding JotSpot into Google Sites and GrandCentral into Google Voice.

Google acquired Picasa in 2004, and Blogger in 2003.

Google Blogger Hit With Major Outage

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 13 May 2011 06:19:04 +0000

Blogger.com, a blog publishing service owned by Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), was hit with a major outage throughout the day today. Most of the blog posts hosted on Blogger were changed to read-only mode. The Blogger product team had rolled back a scheduled maintenance release from last night and their engineers are hard at work to restore Blogger. The Blogger team redesigned the publishing platform, but this outage is not related to the changes. [AllThingsD]

Blogger To Finally Get A Redesign

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 01:29:32 +0000

Over half a billion blog posts with over half a trillion words have been written on Blogger.com thus far according to Google product manager Chang Kim. These blog posts have been read by about 400 million people. About 75% of Blogger’s traffic comes from outside of the U.S. as the blog platform is available in 50 different languages. Google is going to finally redesign Blogger using the Google Web Toolkit. The company is going to present the new Blogger design at SXSW. Below is a video demo of the new features:

Google Fires About 2 People Per Month For Leaking Secrets To The Media

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 23:45:02 +0000

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is now firing about 2 people per month for leaking information to the media. It is known as the “NYT effect” in reference to a New York Times article that criticizes how bloated and bureaucratic Google has become. Evan Williams, the co-founder of Twitter, has complained publicly about how Google handled the acquisition of Blogger before Google had their IPO. Blogger was a company that Williams founded and he was told that he would have a lot of power to hire people for the Blogger team. Hiring people on the Blogger team became a nightmare for him when Google had their IPO. [TechCrunch]

Blogger Gets Real-Time Stats

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:30:54 +0000

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has added real-time stats to Blogger, the blog platform service owned by Google. The new service, called Blogger Stats is available to non-private Blogger accounts.

To access the real-time stats, go to draft.blogger.com and click on the “Stats” tab. Under the Stats tab, there is a selection that says “Now.” You will then see a real-time overview of which articles are popular and where visitors are coming from. This would be very useful for those who have Google Analytics installed on their websites too.

[TechCrunch]

Van Of Jaycee Lee Dugard Kidnapper Phillip Garrido Possibly May Be On Street View

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:01:39 +0000

Jaycee Lee Dugard was a kidnapping and rape victim of Phillip Garrido. Dugard was kidnapped from her home in South Lake Tahoe about 18 years ago when she was age 11. Garrido, the kidnapper will face 29 felony charges which include rape and kidnapping. His wife will also be charged. Dugard was kept in a tent and in sheds along in the couple’s backyard along with the two daughters she had with Garrido. This is one of the most chilling news articles to have surfaced within the last week.

Garrido has a personal blog on Blogger that is now flooded with hate comments. After the jump is a screenshot of some of the hate comments he has received. But another chilling discovery that was found on the Internet regarding Garrido is a mystery van following a Google Street View vehicle. The van was suspected to belong to Garrido himself. Pictures of the van following the Street View car are posted on BoingBoing. Above is one of the pictures of the van.

Perhaps the reason why the van followed the Google Street View car was because it had cameras all over it. Anyone snooping around anywhere with cameras are usually uninvited.

“Skank” Blogger Rosemary Port Plans To Sue Google For $15 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:17:24 +0000

Rosemary Port (pictured left) is a writer that had a blog called “Skanks in NYC.” The blog apparently defamed a model by the name of Liskula Cohen. Cohen sued Google, who was forced by a judge to reveal the Port’s identity. Port was anonymously blogging under a Google Blogger account.

Now that Port’s identity is out in the open, she is mad and is not going to take it. This is why she has informed the media that she plans to sue Google for $15 million for allowing invasion of privacy. Port is a 27 year old studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

She is specifically suing Google for “breaching its fiduciary duty to protect her expectation of anonymity.” Given that Google probably has a team of lawyers on retainer, Port may have a hard time seeing any money coming out of Google but at least she is getting more publicity out of the whole situation.

“Skanks In NYC” Blogger Identified As Rosemary Port

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 03:50:44 +0000

A 29 year old girl by the name of Rosemary Port (pictured left) was the author of a blog called Skanks in NYC. The blog heavily criticized model Liskula Cohen (pictured right). On the blog, Cohen was called an “old hag” and other defamatory comments. As a result, Cohen decided to send an injunction to Google subsidiary Blogger.com to reveal the identity of the anonymous blog writer.

Cohen won the injunction last week. Cohen decided to tell her lawyer Steven Wagner to drop a $3 million lawsuit against Port because she was willing to let by-gones be by-gones. “This is about forgiveness,” Cohen said. “It adds nothing to my life to hurt hers. I wish her happiness.”

Port is upset at Google for revealing her identity and felt that her privacy has been tampered with. Port is also scared that her name is public. The reason why Port wrote defamatory comments against Cohen is because Cohen supposedly talked negatively about Port’s boyfriend Daniel Dimin.