Spot a Blog at BlogSpot

A rundown of Google's free blogging software

by Rupert Sharp
of http://www.oyster-web.co.uk

Last updated: 12 Mar 2008

Now for the people out there who are Wordpress luddites, Blogger is Google's finger in the pie of the online blogging craze. It can be a stand-alone package that you/they(explained further on) can upload to your site or it can be hosted on Blogspot.com, this is a short rundown of its features.

Well first off you've got to sign up for a Blogger account and create a blog. As Google already know where you live, what you look like and how much you weigh this simply involves inputting a signature of your name or team which will be used to sign your post, then you also have to agree to the terms & conditions. Next you have to create a blog, now this is where it can get interesting; on the one hand you have the simple option of creating a Blog by naming it and choosing a sub-domain of Blogspot to host it and on the other hand you can choose to have it uploaded to your site. Now for those of us who didn't catch that 'you can choose to have it uploaded to your site' in other words, you give Google your ftp username and password so they can upload your posts to your site. Sound insane? It is!

Just to test this out I decided to create a temporary ftp account, restricted it to a single Directory and gave Google access; the idea as far as I can tell, is every time you write a post Google access's your site via the ftp you gave it and re-writes the directory with the new information in plain html files. I had a look at the source code and they are most definitely not so 'plain' as they appear, they are viciously code heavy and completely impossible to understand unless you're a Blogger engineer, not exactly easily user-editable.

Once you've filled out this information and after you've decided to host your blog on Blogspot (or shot yourself in the foot) you then choose a template, Blogger has an unbelievable (twelve....) range of dull, mundane and depressing templates for you to peruse. Once you've picked one you're taken to the posting screen where presumably you would want to make your first post and the option of viewing how your blog looks, next on to settings.

When you enter the setting you're bombarded with a collection of different choices, notably the option of keeping your blog out of Blogger listings and Google Blogsearch but it also gives you the option of keeping it out of search engines, this is easily done with a bit of robots.txt but it doesn't say if that includes Google's search engine. You also have a load of small technical details you can change around to your heart's Content but all of which are a bit pointless and unimportant. If you have a browse around you find some more interesting features, for instance there is an option of setting up a 'posting' email address which automatically posts (or saves in drafts) the email you send it as a new post so you don't have to log into Blogger in order to make a post which is pretty useful. Other features include being able to change how your comments are displayed, who is allowed to post a comment (anyone, Google users, Blogger users etc.), email notification of comments and the like. The information about yourself and the blog can be shown in whatever way you wish as well; you can change date format, whether links are displayed, whether your profile is linked/shown etc.

You can also change the physical layout of your blog, this is quite interesting as it allows a 'personalised' *cough cough* look to your blog via widget type deals, but due to the huge lack of starter template designs and the inflexibility of the layout you can't really include much without it seeming cluttered. You do have an option to edit the base HTML for the template but for the inexperienced user this is a complete mine-field as the code is, as said, completely code-heavy and confusing. The built-in widgets do have a nice variety however they range from lists which you could use for displaying your interests or dislikes, polls for getting feedback from your visitors, slideshows and videos for extra umph and you can even add Adsense if the feeling takes you. The widgets do allow for some interesting diversions but if you're wanting more you do get the option to create your own using a blend of html and Javascript.

Blogger does have the idea but all in all no cigar. Despite its security holes I would be more inclined to choose Wordpress over Blogger if it came to a tie-off. I just find that Blogger is a bit bare - it has lots of options but they are all things you don't really need and the general look and feel doesn't make it 'Your Blog'; more of a packaged clone like a social networking journal. The 'it's not unique' feeling is especially emphasised due to the 'Next Blog' link at the top; that really puts me off and despite all its bells and whistles in the settings menu you don't have an option to turn the button off. So all in all the rating it gets from me is the so-so level of approval, better luck next time dudes!