[Google] New Blogger Features

Some time back Google launched Blogger in Draft, a sort of beta-testing sandbox for Blogger's newest features.

Yes, we are thankful that there are new features coming out for Blogger, hehe.

Previously Blogger in Draft had released video uploads, polls and enclosure links with enclosure links being the only one to "graduate" out of drafts.

Today a new feature, the search box, was introduced both on the Blogger in Draft blog and on the Official Google Blog.

It seems pretty cool since you can have the search box in your side bar and it'll load the results in the main column without disrupting things too much. I've seen this run on the Blogger in Draft blog but I've yet to get it to work here on the Geeky Guide. So far, all I'm getting from the widget is a "Loading..." message. I've tried limiting my settings to search just the Geeky Guide but it doesn't seem to be working well. Let me know if the new search feature is loading when you visit the Geeky Guide - it should appear in the upper right corner, right at the very top of the sidebar.

To compare results, I've also created a Google Custom Search Engine which is called the Geeky Search and this should appear at the very bottom of my blog posts.

Let me know what you think of these two features and if they're integrating well into the Geeky Guide.

As a last note, Blogger now also allows you to easily redirect your users to a different site feed of your choice, like for example your FeedBurner feed? What? You forgot that Google bought FeedBurner? Well they did.

For readers of the Geeky Guide who may have subscribed to the site's feed before I signed up for FeedBurner, you won't experience any changes on your end. Instead, you will not be integrated into the FeedBurner version of my feed, which will give me a better picture of how many users are actually subscribed.

Ain't change wonderful?

[Google] A Quick Recap

Since a lot of things have happened while the Geeky Guide has been down, in a way, due to unavoidable demands from the real world, we've missed a fair number of Google-related events and milestones. Rather than going in-depth in terms of old news, just thought it would be sufficient to do a fly-by of some of the events we found more notable and throw in our two cents' worth here and there.

First up, kudos to the mobile team at Google for revamping their Google Mobile page to better present their more recent developments and of course making browsing using your mobile phone a whole lot easier and fulfilling.

Next on the list is the revitalization of Google Co-op with the introduction of the Google Custom Search Engine, an interesting tool for both site developers and more finicky web searchers out there. We feel this is definitely an interesting development for the team and a better way of positioning the Co-op service, which didn't seem to gain any immediate popularity upon its initial release.

As the 2006 US Elections draw closer and closer, the Google Blog announced the release of a an election guide using Google Earth which aids users in all aspects of the elections from registration to news and information on the various parties and candidates. Another great contribution that is sure to help more people get involved and of course promote Google's many services.

And in time for the Halloween festivities, Google Book Search is now featuring a number of classic horror stories that you can either find at a library near you or even download completely from the Google Book Search site! Given the relative recency of the download feature, this is certainly a nice way for them to promote the option and of course increase awareness about Book Search.

Now for the less than positive news of sorts...

The Google Blog also released another entry talking about the proper usage of the word 'Google' in a sort of sermon to the world wide web about its usage. While of course they're entitled to defend the integrity of their brand name, I just felt it a bit off to go an lecture everyone about it like that. But that's my opinion, not yours.

Then of course there were the numerous outages at Blogger that the Blogger team tried to dress up as a novel of sorts. While it was creative, I'm glad I wasn't one of those affected. Then again, I use the new beta version of Blogger, which apparently wasn't affected. I hope this acts as a wake-up call of sorts for the team to get to work improving Blogger's way of life, so to speak.

That about rounds things up for the Geeky Guide on Google for now. Expect to hear from us by next week at the very latest!