Pages

8/15/2006

Changes ahead ...

Some exciting news for Blogger users was announced yesterday ... Blogger has added new and imprioved features and gone back to beta. I've had a blogger account since 2002, so the announcement that the new version includes the ability to add categories and a drop-n-drag feature to rearrange your template as well as control who can read your blog is verrrrry exciting.

It's funny that this announcement should occur this week, just as 130 (that's the number so far & it's still growing) PLCMC employees have setup their own blogs and join the Learning 2.0 party.

When I logged into my blog, I see that I'm not one of the lucky ones to be given access to these new enhancements yet and since Blogger says they will transitioning all users gradually as they roll this new interface out, it occurs to me that some of these new-to-blogging L2 participants may have access to these new features before I do. :)

Anyway... I'm not worried. If the new version of Blogger is as user friendly as the current, then participants should have no problems figuring things out. Here's a tour of the new features. And if you're a Learning 2.0 participant and were one of the lucky one's that got this first, please let me know. I'd loved to know what you think of it.

UPDATE: Created a new blog through the beta site and was able to play around with the new enhancements --- Three thumbs up! Ok, two thumbs... but I'm impressed! Just one small note to Blogger-- the comments feature still needs an optional email address for non-blogger commenters.

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3 comments:

Joy said...

It's funny you should mention that because my colleague and I are in a similar situation. We are about to do a presentation on blogging using Blogger for the Nevada Library Association pre-conference (at 3:30 pst today!) I was going to going to show the ease of Blogger but I think I'll also go to Blogger Beta and show them how much easier it is now. I set up another account through http://beta.blogger.com to check things out and have the ability to show them the differences.

Anonymous said...

The lack of categories and difficulty changing the templates to my liking are what made me go to wordpress. I'm glad to see blogger getting all the new bells and whistles. People have been asking for these things for a while.

Anonymous said...

I was able to get a blogger beta account. There was an information box on my dashboard when I logged in underneath my profile. It didn't say anything about being preselected. I just clicked on the link for the information and then Blogger walked me through transfering my account to Beta. It saved a copy of my original template. Then I had to add back all the original code that I had added to my sidebar but it retained all of my posts and all of the links I made. Hope that helps.

P.S. I'm still not sure if this is the correct way to reply to a comment. I am responding to a comment that you made to me on my blog, The Questing Librarian. What is proper etiquette for replying to comments? Email, answering on their blog, or some other way?
Thanks!