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Blog Wars: Impact of WordPress, Tumblr and Blogger

When I started my blogging career, most people would start with a blog created on Blogger.com and then move it to WordPress self-hosted.

The trend was Blogger.com was the first choice for new bloggers while WordPress was adopted by bloggers with more experience.

That trend is changing and more people are using WordPress or Tumblr. WordPress.com according to Compete.com is miles ahead of Blogger and Tumblr, when it unique visitors are considered (see graph below).

compete_WordPress_Blogger_Tumblr

These number do not include self-hosted WordPress blogs; but only the ones on WordPress.com. It is amazing to see it has numbers that are double if not more than other blogging platforms consistently for over the last two years.

Rise of Tumblr

It also shows the rise of tumblr being adopted as a blogging platform by many. It had less than 4 million unique visitors and today it’s around 15 million. Tumblr has some fantastic social features which has given it huge numbers when page views are taken into account it dominates WordPress and Blogger.(see graph below).

Blogging_Tumblr_PVs

Tumblr has over a billion page views when compared to WordPress.com’s 200 million page views. This shows tumblr is doing a brilliant job of engaging readers socially but WordPress doing a better job with search engines. Maybe this is not a battle between platforms as much as it is a battle between social vs. search.

What are your views? Do drop in your comments.

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Integrate Google+ Profile into Blogspot/Blogger

Google has started pushing through Google+ integrated features onto their other products. Today Google introduced the option that allows Blogspot users to transfer the Blogger profile to Google+.

Currently this option is available only in the draft section of Blogger platform but will be made available to everyone.

How to activate your Google+ profile to Blogger

  • Visit the draft blogger landing page, which is draft.blogger.com.
  • Ideally you should get a prompt to get started with Google+ profile, but incase you do not see the option, visit this link http://draft.blogger.com/edit-profile.g and you should be able to get the link to connect blogger to Google+.

Blogger_profile_edit

  • The next page that loads up shows you how your profile is about to change.

Blogger_Google_PLus_profiles

  • Finally click on accept and it takes you to another page that allows you to add this profile to the blogs you choose.
  • The change then is applied only to those particular blogs.

I think this will be helpful, in the sense most bloggers will have it easy to keep up a single profile. Currently Google does not mention if it plans to shut down Blogger profiles in the future. But it might happen in the future and makes sense as blogs on Blogger platform will get more social and only help the visibility of Google+.

Do drop in your comments and views.

Related: 5 Google Products that need Google+ integration 

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Download “Devils’ Workshop” Blogger Template

Mukund from NewBloggingTipz.com released a free Blogger.com template which replicate our current Devils’ Workshop theme nicely. 🙂

You can see live demo here.  You can download it from here.

If you decide to use it on your Blogger.com blog, please read follow-up articles on customizations as well.

As Mukund developed this theme on his own, contact him only for support. 😉

WordPress Theme

I saw some readers requesting WordPress version of DW theme as well. We will surely release current DW WordPress Theme for community once its get ported on our recently launched rtPanel wordpress theme framework.

Thanks Surun for the tip. 🙂

Link: Devils’ Workshop Blogger.com Template

 

 

 

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5 Google Products That Need to be Integrated With Google+

The world of social media was never as busy and interesting as it is . Google+ is the new kid around and it is already (thanks largely to being a Google product) giving jitters to Twitter and Facebook. If Google+ keeps improving I reckon it could even put some very prominent tech companies out of business.

Google has some great services which are not integrated with Google+. I think the 5 services below will give Google+ and edge no other social network has.

Google_5_integrate_gplus

#1. Google Docs

google_docs_gplusSimple way to share documents on Google+ is by sharing a link to it and making the document public. But if Google Docs was integrated with Google+, where people could share a document with a circle or even individuals it would be quite handy.

Social sharing of documents could also give a boost to Google Docs like Picasa got a boost after being integrated with Google+.

#2. Google Search

Google_search_gplusAt the moment, we can only search for profiles on Google+. A nice search feature which would combine Google Realtime results to allow people searching for latest trending public updates would be great.

A real deep level of search is needed on Google+, to really unleash the opportunity for people to discover new content via Google+.

#3. Google Groups

Google_groups_gplusNot many people use Google Groups but it has a some great features for people looking to share and create mini-communities. It could truly rival Facebook Groups. If Google Groups could be integrated with Google+, people could have interactive communities.

#4. Blogger

blogger_gplusGoogle has ramped up a lot of features on Blogger. There are also rumours that Blogger might be rebranded Google Blogs. I think Blogger can be integrated with Google to allow verified brands. Using Blogger integration would allow users a lot more interactive brand pages than say what exists on Facebook. Facebook Pages are quite restrictive that way.

#5. Google Analytics

Google_analytics_gplusGoogle Analytics is a powerful tool to track traffic. Just imagine having data on which photo shared or post shared was viewed the most amount of times. Imagine what brand managers could do with Google Analytics integrated with a social network like Google+.

What are your views on Google Plus? Do you think there are other Google services which need to be integrated into Google+. Do drop in your comments and let me know.

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Google’s Blogger Faces Downtime: Trouble in the Cloud!

Google has often talked a lot about the cloud. Store everything you want online and access it anywhere. This all sounds fantastic most times until the moment something goes wrong. The popular blogging platform Blogger.com is down.

Blogger_down

This service has been down for a few hours and this probably shakes confidence of people in Cloud services. It seems they are removing posts temporarily, which were created after  7.37 AM PDT, 11th May 2011.

Here is a quote from Blogger Status:

To get Blogger back to normal, all posts since 7:37am PDT on Weds, 5/11 have been temporarily removed. We expect everything to be back to normal soon. Sorry for the delay.

A few months ago, Gmail outage had also caused concern with Google users. Stay tuned to this post and I will update it when blogger is available again.

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Enable New Dynamic Views with Endless Scrolling on Blogger

Blogger had earlier this month announced that it was going to start unveiling new features. WordPress might be the platform of choice for professional bloggers but there are literally millions of casual bloggers who write and create content as a hobby.

Obviously they are looking for simple solutions when it comes to tweaking layouts and Blogger has realized that by giving some new additions.

First they added the follow by email gadget which allows people to follow a blogspot blog via email. Now they are introducing a new layouts or views with endless scrolling. This seems to be borrowed for the new Google Image search layout.

Here is a video demo of Blogger Dynamic Views

Get Dynamic View on Blogger

  • At the moment these views are not included as themes or as default views on Blogger templates.
  • But any Blogger blog can be viewed in the new Dynamic views by just adding “/view” in front of the URL.
  • For example, if your blogger blog is on “example.com” then to get the dynamic views just type in “example.com/view”.

Do you think this will prop up Blogger? I still feel that when it comes to blogging professionally, WordPress does a better job. Also when you write on Blogspot the content does stay on Google’s servers rather than, you hosting your own content which can be done with WordPress.

Do drop in your comments.

Source: Blogger Buzz

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[Dhiti] Free Widget to Get Visitors to Discover Content on Your Blog!

Dhiti_logoA couple of days ago, I installed a widget or gadget (depending on weather you use Blogger or WordPress) from Dhiti which is mainly a content discovery engine. This allows visitors to discover content in a novel and interactive way. I found Dhiti a very useful service, especially if you are a new to blogging and want your readers to engage and look up more content.

There are many ways to show favourite and popular links on a blog, but with Dhiti, as it has crawled your site we get a more instinctive way of discovering new content.

Features of Dhiti

  • Dhiti is basically a widget we can have on your blog. The first thing to do is , allow Dhiti, to crawl your blog’s content.
  • This content then is displayed in an interactive way which might make your visitors to stay longer on your site.
  • Another feature allows  visitors to select content they liked reading and save it. This allows showing more preferred content in the widget.

Dhiti_display_content

I decided to check out Dhiti, on my personal blog. I was quite surprised to see an email from Dhiti, telling me to have the widget not on the side column of the site but at the footer. Having it at the footer would have made the widget appear a lot more uncluttered.

This was done proactively and atleast when it came to a free service, I had not seen such proactive support. 🙂

If you have a new blog and want a new interesting way for visitors to look up more content try out Dhiti on your blog. Do drop in your comments.

Link: Dhiti Widget

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Add Email Subscription to a blog on Blogger/BlogSpot

I have a personal blog and I do not really write a lot on it. My blogging frequency on it, is about 1-2 posts per month! Most people who read this blog are my friends and family. The lack of regular updates means every time I write a post, I end up sending them an email with the new post URL. Also because of the lack of frequency in blogging, I prefer to use Blogger instead of WordPress.

Recently, you might have read about new features on Blogger for 2011. One of those new changes is in the form a new Follow by Email Gadget introduced on Blogger.

How to set up Follow by Email!

  • Sign-in to your Blogger account and look up the Dashboard of your Blog.
  • At the Dashboard, you should be able to see your usual design options (seem image below).

Blogger_follow_email_setup

  • Now Click on Add a Gadget and a pop-up window will appear.
  • Select Follow by Email gadget and add it. This will show the gadget on your blog.

Blogger_follow_email_Gadget

  • On the blog it looks like a handy gadget for visitors to follow your blog updates with email.

Blogger_follow_email

Do try it out if you have a blogspot blog. Email subscription is quite useful for many personal blogs, as such blogs might not get updated all the time. Another point is, sometimes your friends might not remember your blog’s URL to visit it regularly. An update in the email will serve perfectly in this case. 😉

Do drop in your comments.

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Sneak Peek of New Design Planned for Blogger.com

Blogger_logoInternet Explorer 9 launch is not the only thing that made news at SXSW (South by South West) Austin, Texas. Google also gave out a small peek at changes that we will see in 2011 on Blogger.com.

Blogger, is probably the most used blogging platform as most new bloggers end up starting on Blogger. WordPress is a great platform because of how much it can be customized. But it, does need a little technical knowledge and many casual bloggers usually prefer Blogger.

Below image is how the new Blogger Dashboard should look like!

Blogger_New_dashboard_2011

Image Credit

Expected new features of Blogger

  • The dashboard looks clean and better organised.
  • It will also have new content discovery features which will help discover related content while reading a post.
  • The design in Blogger.com will use Google Web Toolkit which is known to be used for creating browser applications.
  • The real-time stats are pretty nifty with Blogger anyways, I think in the new redesign they might put more emphasis on real-time stats. After all this is where it probably has a bit of an edge over WordPress.

Change in Blogger’s focus?

I think there has been a change in focus for Blogger. It probably realises that it cannot be a platform like WordPress. WordPress is a used mainly when people want their website to look professional. Blogger has realised that it’s main clients are new or casual bloggers who just want to write things and share them with friends and family. With that in mind, Blogger might become more user-friendly.

Take a look at Blogger’s video on things to expect in 2011.

What do you think about Blogger’s new plans? Do you think these changes will excite you and will it threaten the incredible success of WordPress? Do drop in your comments.

Source: Google Blog

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How To Add Blogger Sitemap To Google Webmaster Central

blogger_logo

Do you want your blog on Blogger get listed on Google Search? For that you first need to submit a Sitemap to Google through Google Webmaster Central Tool.

For those who don’t know what a sitemap really is, it is a file(.xml, etc.) containing all the links available on your website/blog which helps a Search Engine crawl your blog/website better and index it.

Here in this tutorial I will tell you How to Add your Blogger Sitemap to Google (even if you’re using Feed Burner).

How To Add Your Blog To Google Webmaster Tool

  • Adding your blog to Google Webmaster Tool is very easy, all you have to do is log in to your Blogger Account. After logging in, the Blogger Dashboard will show up.
  • Now scroll down the page and click on Webmaster Tools (Under ‘Other Stuff’).

  • You will be redirected to Google Webmaster Tool Dashboard. There you’ll see a message asking you to add your blogs to Webmaster Tools, just select the sites you want to and click on Add.
  • Once your blog has been added, Go To Webmaster Central Dashboard >> Click on your Site Name under ‘Sites’

  • After clicking on your site’s name, you’ll then see a page similar to the image below:

  • Now click on Sitemaps under Site Configuration.
  • Click on Submit a Sitemap and you’ll will then be prompted to fill in your sitemap’s address. Now follow the steps given below.

If you are not using Feedburner:

Fill in the site map as atom.xml OR rss.xml and click on Submit.

If you are using Feedburner:

Fill in the sitemap as atom.xml?redirect=false and click on Submit.

After submitting your blog’s sitemap, wait for sometime and then reload the page. Now a green tick should appear in front of your sitemap URL (this means that your sitemap is valid), if it is replaced by a red cross then it means that you sitemap is not valid (Recheck the Sitemap URL again and then resubmit).

Now, all you have to do is wait for Google to index your blog’s links on Google Search. Yes, it will take some time to get your blog indexed on Google (maybe 2-5 days).

Did you find this tip useful? Do drop in your comments.