Blogger Finds The Beta Exit

Google's Blogger service has been running a couple of versions in parallel: the old Blogger they picked up from Pyra Labs, and the new beta built to replace it. The new Blogger has shed its beta tag and is ready for all those people who make blogging a New Year's resolution. Users of the Blogger Buzz about just a few of the features now available: The new version of Blogger is metaphorically bursting with features, from the big guns like drag-and-drop template editing and post labels (which are perfect, by the way, for indexing the 131 historical figures you may have written about), to little polishes like a better-designed Dashboard or that you no longer need to solve a word verification CAPTCHA to post a comment on your own blog. We're excited about the new version of Blogger, both for what it can do now (which also includes access control for blogs and better input fields for post dates) and what we'll add to it in the future, now that we have a new, stable, powerful infrastructure to work with. Users can create a private blog, where only designated readers can view it. Blogger also has expanded feed capabilities, with choices to publish in Atom 1.0 or RSS 2.0 formats. A blogger can set feeds for the entire blog, and for all comments or per-post comments as desired. They removed a couple of annoying features, by taking away the CAPTCHA requirement for a blogger to comment on his blog, and by enabling instant updating when a new post is created or settings are changed; say goodbye to the "Publishing..." spinner, as the developers noted in the Blogger tour. Blogger's mobile features allow the journeying blogger to post text and images directly from a mobile device to a blog. Also, one can record an audio message on a mobile, post it to the blog, and it will be available as a .mp3 file to blog visitors. What the new Blogger can't do is make you post on a regular basis. The features are in place to support a newfound blogging habit, but the real transition to blogging comes from within. And there's always Jason Calacanis' Tag: Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl Bookmark Murdok: David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.