Blogger has announced a new “following” feature that enables members to list themselves as fans of other members’ blogs.
By following a set of blogs, your username and avatar will not only show up among other followers in a MyBlogLog-like gadget that can be placed in the sidebars of these blogs. You can also view the latest posts from the blogs you follow in a special feed reader on the Blogger dashboard.
Since Blogger is owned and run by Google, the posts from the blogs you follow on Blogger can also be accessed with Google Reader in a special “Blogs I’m Following” section.
While the new following feature will be useful for staying on top of your favorite content, the main benefit to Blogger will come from introducing a better sense of community, one that can be built out gradually into a more functional social network. The Blogger team has already announced its intention to implement Google Friend Connect throughout the blog network, so it’s definitely heading further in this direction.
On the one hand, this new feature roll out can be seen as just an attempt to stay competitive with Moveable Type and WordPress, both of which have already developed social features of their own (and the former of which has run into the arms of Google’s social networking nemesis, Facebook).
But Google also conspicuously lacks a social network with any significant amount of popularity in the United States (Orkut hasn’t made much headway here). So perhaps it has decided to pin much of its social networking hopes on Blogger, which could be leveraged to bolster the usage of Google Friend Connect and eventually OpenSocial as well.
If you’re a Blogger user and don’t see the new following feature yet, you may have to wait a few weeks – they are rolling it out gradually.
Thats why I think a lot of web 2.0 products or companies are really features that can enhance other products ..
boooooooring! nu features and own ideas! no more copycats an stolen stuff pleaze!
Looks like Tumblr.
Displays a list of users who follow your blog.
This gadget is experimental and is not yet available on all blogs. Check back soon!
Slow rollout since I first heard about it but I think it will alleviate the sense of isolation that Bloggers there tend to feel.
This is a stale web 2.0 feature that I dont think will get that much leverage. I’m personally closing down my blogger account and moving to self-hosted wordpress. Blogger is like 90% restricted compared to wordpress.
Many of these efforts feel a little stale. I understand – Traffic should generate more repeat traffic and they try to find ways to keep the traffic turning over moving. But it’s just not important.
You’re right, they all sacrify for th god traffic and made usefulness stuff !
The only thing that’s good with blogger versus wordpress is that you don’t have to worry about updating your wordpress install everytime an update comes out, because they do all the updating internally. Only thing with blogger is that their templates are pale looking.
you can get plenty of new blogger templates, and even change the html if you want different colors, etc
Not as flexible as wordpress.org, but not bad
There isn’t much of a social feel to this new widget, just a list of pics? It will be better when we can truly integrate Blogs and social networks. Our site is headed that way – right now we integrate Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail – but Blogger and Wordpress are in the next couple sites that will get added.
Not trying to spam, just want to spread the word to the tech savvy – http://www.gruvie.com
I like blogger for just throwing content up. Wordpress fan all the way though.
What are the Wordpress Social Features like this & where are they located?
Wordpress is working on a social network project called BuddyPress: http://www.buddypress.org
@darrin:
Hosted Wordpress(.com) has its “Blog Surfer” tool, which sounds like what Google copied along with MyBlogLog to make this feature. If you have a hosted WP account the link is on your Dashboard, next to Blog Stats. I don’t know of a plugin that emulates the behavior for non-hosted WP blogs.
To the previous commenters:
Comparing blogger to self hosted Wordpress isn’t fair. The proper comparison to make is between Blogger & Wordpress.com, which are very similar featurewise.
en, it great~
So Google is competing directly with MyBlogLog now?
I think it’s a good idea.
It’s still experimental. Only beta users have access. FYI.
don’t get it. google owns google reader. and with everyone having friendfeed/twitter/shareaholic etc etc etc. why is this needed? I especially don’t like the “blogger blogs only” part. I find their blogs so cumbersome and clunky as great as google is at soo much.
I’d so much rather they put their time and effort into making their blogs commentable without having to repeatedly enter a slew of info. and codes and captchas. ugh. half the time I just give up and look for a WP blog.
I think it’s a good idea and will give it a go though don’t see it on my blogger dashboard yet.
They have been adding a lot of new features latley. It sounds like a good idea.
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I like how they plan to carry what they built on the blog to the social network.
Want to add this experimental blog gadget immediately? Enter this URL in your browser address:
http://www.blog...errer=directory
Tip: View your blog source and search for “blogID” text to get your blogID value.
And so now when will Blogger update those God ugly templates that sucked when they launched them in 2004?
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I am teaching a class about blogging, so this article was helpful, thanks.
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Google actually want to set up its own strong social networking business.
There is no absolute doubt that Google will be able to expand Blogger in the not-too-distant future. Blogger supports social networking and that is a nice feature.