Show off your Followers

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.

By following your blog, your readers tell you and the world that they’re a fan of what you post. Your Dashboard now shows you how many followers each of your blogs has. With a click on the Followers icon, you can browse your followers, see what blogs they write, and read the other blogs they’re following.

Now that you know who your Followers are, you can show them off by adding the Followers gadget to your blog’s sidebar. From the “Layout | Page Elements” tab, click “Add a Gadget” and select “Followers” from the gadgets list. The Followers gadget shows the profile pictures of your followers and gives your readers a “Follow This Blog” link to join up, too.

Your followers can stay updated with your blog with the Reading List that we’ve added to the Blogger Dashboard. The Blogs I’m Following tab automatically shows the latest posts from all the blogs you follow. You can follow any blog from your reading list, even blogs that haven’t added the Followers widget or aren’t hosted on Blogger. Just click the “Add” button and type in the blog’s URL.

If you’re a Google Reader user, you’ll now see a special folder in Reader called “Blogs I’m Following,” full of the subscriptions for all of the blogs you follow. You can follow blogs you’ve subscribed to in Reader, too: From the Reading List on your Blogger Dashboard, click “Add,” then “Import from Google Reader.”

And.... there's more to come! We are also in the process of integrating with Google Friend Connect so you can give your readers more engaging social features.

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

Read More Here...

Updates and Bug Fixes for August 27th

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.
  

Read More Here...

Webinars For Those Too Busy For Seminars

Ever sat in a seminar or conference and thought how much better it would be if you could learn all of the material being presented without being physically there?

Well, we've started holding webinars for our advertisers, to provide further information and training in how to make the most of AdWords (Google’s online advertising program), which you can enjoy from the comfort of your own armchair (or, more likely, your desk).

Our first webinar, "Introduction to Optimisation" was held in June, and saw hundreds of advertisers sign up. (Optimisation refers to the ability to make changes to your keywords, ad text and account structure in order to maximise the effectiveness of your online advertising). Advertisers heard from one of our local optimisation experts who presented tips and tricks for making online advertising campaigns perform better. Two of our AdWords team members were also on hand to respond to advertiser questions via chat throughout the webinar.

If you're interested in our upcoming webinars on all sorts of advertising-related topics such as Analytics, AdWords Editor and other AdWords topics, click here for a calendar of events.  

Posted by Jaime Brands, Google AdWords Team

Read More Here...

Updates and Bug Fixes for August 14th

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.

Read More Here...

Googlers search for the finishing line

Getting up early on Sundays is practically taboo for most Australians. Getting up early on Sunday to jog 14km is almost unheard of. So when the annual Sun Herald City2Surf marathon attracts a crowd of 70,000 enthusiastic participants, it’s quite clear that Sydneysiders are more than happy to break a few rules in the name of charity.

This year our very own team of Googlers and their families took to the start line at 9am, ready to tackle Heartbreak Hill, dodge crowd-pleasers in fancy dress and make it to the finish line without a single stain of yellow Gatorade on their shirts. From Engineering, to Sales and Marketing, there was healthy representation from almost every Google team. Nikolai Pitchforth, Senior Industry Analyst for our Travel team, finished in just under an hour, while others such as myself walked a steady pace, reaching Bondi Beach in double that time.

(You can see the route we all travelled here on Google Maps or with our Street View flipbook video).

So whether you walked, danced, jogged or ran on the day, your participation helped to support many great causes and community projects. Congratulations to all who entered and good luck in your recovery over the next week!

Google Team get ready for a cold start



Left to right: Patrice McCauley, Gabriella Scott, Angela Lawrence



Rob Schonberger secures his spot at the Start Line:

Posted by Shaden Mohamed – Account Strategist, Travel

Read More Here...

Spice Up Your Blog with Google Gadgets!

Fresh out of Blogger's own testing ground, Google Gadgets have now been enabled for all layouts blogs. This new interface allows for the integration of iGoogle Gadgets directly into your sidebar, with an array of customization options for easy tweaking. Also built into Gadgets is our robust Gadget Directory, which lets you browse through thousands of cool gadgets and add them to your blog with a simple click of a button.

You can access Gadgets from your dashboard under the Layout | Gadgets tab (the tab formerly known as "Layout | Page Elements.")

Gadgets have built-in configuration for easy integration into your layout. All gadgets are automatically sized to match the width of your sidebar, and their height in pixels can be adjusted using the Gadget's built-in options. Our large list of Gadgets is constantly growing and evolving. You can browse them all from our comprehensive Gadget Directory, which runs the gamut from sports updates to site counters, and flash games to local information tickers. To bring up the Gadget Directory, just click Add a Gadget from your layout. Have an idea for a gadget that isn't listed? Then build it yourself! We are always on the lookout for great ideas, so please submit your own creation to the iGoogle Gadget Directory, and then let us know about it in our Help Group— we may just add it to our 'Featured Gadgets' Section.

Itching to get started? Have a look at our our help video below for some guidance on browsing, adding, and customizing a gadget on your blog:

Read More Here...

Keeping up with the Summer Games

Now that the Games are underway, we're happy to present the 2008 Summer Games on Google, a site featuring a number of Google products to help you stay updated on happenings. Whether you're cheering for Australia, or living, working, or traveling here and supporting your home country, the gadget is available in 31 languages.

We collaborated with a data provider to make it easy for you to keep current on event schedules and get updates on results, as well as track medal counts with an iGoogle gadget. You can also get schedules and results right on the Google homepage. (Check out the results for swimming). 

We're also including the newest Summer Games highlights through Google News. The Summer Games on Google Maps lets you view medal and event information based on your favourite regions and sports. Read more about these efforts on the Lat Long Blog.

Also, be sure to check out this collection of 3D stadiums and venues created with Google SketchUp. And since we know many of you are often on the go, all this information is available for mobile devices, where Google Mobile is available.

We hope these tools make it easy and enjoyable for you to follow all the action at the Summer Games.

Posted by Chloe Sasson, Account Strategist

Read More Here...

Street View: the view from Day 2

I suspect I'm not alone in admitting that I spent quite a while using Street View to look up some of my favourite spots in Australia yesterday. I first checked out my neighbourhood in Sydney and then took some time traveling down "memory lane" looking at some of the places I've lived and visited. It was the first time I could share street-level panoramic imagery from Australia with my friends who live overseas.

It was almost overwhelming to see the excitement and interest in Street View from people in every State and Territory yesterday. We've heard from lots of Australians who checked it out - both here and abroad. We've also heard from people overseas who are already scoping out their next holiday destinations here in Australia -- from Airlie Beach to Exmouth and many places in between.

Some of you have asked "when will imagery for my street, my neighbourhood, or my town be available on Street View?" Although the coverage of Australia is extremely comprehensive, rest assured; we are absolutely continuing to add more areas and new public roads throughout Australia so keep your eyes peeled.

Speaking of which, we were thrilled that one of our users found the first ever "Street View Kangaroos":


View Larger Map

Lots of Australian users and businesses are already using Street View in important ways.

We knew property seekers would be thrilled at the ability to use Street View when looking to buy or rent, but within a matter of hours following the feature's availability, the real-estate website, Domain.com.au, integrated Street View into all their property listings across the country. Now, when you look up homes or apartments at domain.com.au, you can walk down the street and see your new neighbourhood.

Google and the Sun-Herald City2Surf have also launched a "flipbook" video using still images from Street View to create a video of the race route, which takes place in Sydney this Sunday (10 August 2008). This is the first time in the world that a fun run has made a video of its course using Street View images. Runners can visualise the route and spectators can find the best vantage point in Sydney to cheer on their friends, co-workers and relatives. And please remember to donate and support the runners!



As a reminder, while Street View contains views from public roads, if you identify any imagery you consider sensitive or inappropriate, you can easily flag it for removal by clicking on "Street View Help" in any Street View window.

To all of you -- those who are long-time users of Google Maps and those who've discovered Google Maps for the first time -- thanks for your excitement and interest. Hope you continue to enjoy your journeys across Australia.

Posted by Andrew Foster, Product Manager

Read More Here...

Blogger Babies

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.

Read More Here...

View Australia like never before

Ever since Google Maps was first developed right here in Sydney, those of us at Google Australia are excited by its continued developments. Today, we're really pleased to introduce Street View for Australia, a feature which enables you to view and navigate 360-degree street-level imagery of public roads in Australia, from the CBD to the outback, from Geraldton to Coffs Harbour.

Check out the Street View page with introductory videos and tips here.

Below is a slideshow of Street View images from around Australia. 



We're particularly excited that Australia is one of the first countries to launch Street View and to do so with such extensive coverage.

Whether you're checking out a restaurant before arriving in Cairns, working on a classroom project about Alice Springs, making travel plans to Adelaide, showing customers your business in Bondi, finding a holiday home in Bunbury, or arranging a meeting point with friends in St Kilda, Street View has a myriad of great uses.

Many Australian organisations - including Tourism Australia, the Real Estate Institute of Australia and the Australian Geography Teachers Association - have already identified significant opportunities for Street View to be used in travel, tourism, house buying and renting, education and helping make small businesses easier to find.



It's important to stress that we have gone to great lengths to safeguard privacy while enabling all Australians to benefit from this feature.

Street View only contains imagery that is already visible by anyone from public roads. And of course, none of the imagery is "real time". In addition, Street View features technology that blurs identifiable faces and vehicle license plates are unidentifiable. If you consider that Street View contains imagery that you consider sensitive or inappropriate, you can easily flag it for removal by clicking on "Street View Help" in any Street View window. We have consulted extensively and worked closely with many privacy and community groups in developing the Street View feature and privacy safeguards.

As you try out the feature for yourself on Google Maps, we hope you enjoy your journeys as you explore, learn about, and share our beautiful country in a way that's old and yet new -- with a street view.

Posted by Andrew Foster, Product Manager

Read More Here...

You Are Not Spam

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.

Read More Here...

Spam Fridays

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.

Read More Here...