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CNET Archive

Blogger (03/19/2005)

Blogger

Entered CNET Catalog: 03/19/2005

SKU: SERVBLOGGER

Manufacturer: Google

Content [Hide]
  1. Manufacturer's description
  2. Product summary
  3. Editors' review
  4. Users' opinions
  5. Blogs

Manufacturer description

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Google's utility and ease of use have made it one of the world's best-known brands.

Product summary

The goodThe good: Free; easy to use.

The badThe bad: Lacks video support; limited to one user.

The bottom lineThe bottom line: Beginners will love Blogger's ease of use and the fact that it's free. However, professionals should look elsewhere.

Average user rating: from 20 users
3.5 stars

Editors' review

  • Editors' Choice: No
  • Reviewed on: 03/30/2005
If you've been sitting on the sidelines, wondering how to create your own blog, you no longer have an excuse. Google's Blogger.com is a blogging service that's simple to use and free. Compared with other blogging services, such as Six Apart TypePad, however, Blogger lacks high-end features, such as the ability to add video posts or allow multiple authors. Beginners will appreciate Blogger, but more-experienced Netizens should opt for paid services, such as TypePad.

In addition, Google is testing a beta edition of Blogger that lets you quickly tag posts by topic and shut out unwanted readers. However, without a beta invitation, you can't yet merge your old Blogger blog with one created in Blogger beta.

Blogger requires a simple three-part setup. First, create your account (by answering five questions), then name your blog (a two-step process), and finally choose from 31 predesigned templates or design your own template. Blogger allows you to put your blog on your Web host and make your blog a part of your own Web site, or you can use Blogger.com's free hosting service, Blogspot.com, instead.


Compared with TypePad, Blogger's interface lacks useful tools.

If you're not comfortable writing basic HTML, Blogger.com provides a simple WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) interface. Buttons enable you to choose different fonts, sizes, colors, bulleted lists, and text alignment within your posts. Like TypePad, Blogger also allows for RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds for your online content.

For most beginners, the templates and options provided should be more than enough. If you know HTML, however, you'll also be able to add your own block quotes or create bulleted lists. Unfortunately, Blogger lacks the advanced HTML-editing tools found in TypePad that allow you to create photo albums or add video with ease--annoying if you don't want to take time or if you don't already know HTML.

Blogger.com hosts an extensive online help page with dozens of tips and tricks for basic and advanced use of the service. Sadly, unlike the paid TypePad, Blogger does not provide human tech support, either via e-mail or phone. Fortunately, most of the problems we encountered involved coding errors. By taking our time and rechecking the HTML, we resolved our issues.

User opinions

Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
User Rating:
1.0 stars

out of 20 user reviews

Prepare to be frustratedby hallettracing - March 6, 2008

Pros: Free, handy options, help forums

Cons: lots of outages, bugs, downtime, very little help

Review: I create my own web pages using hard coded HTML, so I'm no dummy when it comes to computers, but I've spent two weeks of fighting Google's Blogger and have found it to be the most frustrating program I've ever failed to be able to conquer. Blog not viewable one day, control panel now viewable the next, many things don't work as instructed, help is rare, directions are not clear and don't always work the same for everyone, problems getting your registered domain name to work with blogger, many many problems when associated with Google Apps. It's been a frustrating nightmare simply trying to post a blog and keep it up for a few days without major glitches or problmes. I'm looking elsewhere.
User Rating:
1.5 stars

out of 20 user reviews

Problems! Problems! Problems!by kaydeeay - June 14, 2006

Pros: easy to use for beginners

Cons: disappearing blog, almost no support

Review: I did like this in the beginning because I have little knowledge of blogging and it was so easy. But then the problems began. Parts of my blog would disappear, suddenly I couldn't post pictures, there is no real support for the problem. Their idea of support is to ask other bloggers. I think it is bad business but I guess what do you expect for free?
User Rating:
0.5 stars

out of 20 user reviews

blogs get disabled or deleted, VERY slow supportby steve_o_tx - April 17, 2006

Pros: easy to use, easy to modify, its free

Cons: spam bot, disabled blog, deleted blogs, slow support

Review: I really like this service when I first started using it until several of my blogs were disabled as spam, then many of them deleted. Support is almost non existent. Days turn into weeks waiting for them to get back to you and fix the problem.
User Rating:
4.0 stars

out of 20 user reviews

Excellent for quick'n'easy group blogsby Michael Stringer - November 5, 2005

Pros: Great for those who want a simple tool to publish on Internet

Cons: Missing useful features such as categories

Review: I use TypePad for a personal blog and Blogger for project blogs involving multiple authors. I think that Blogger is a great tool for simple, get-things-done, web publishing.

Blogger doesn't have the same feature set as TypePad, but it is free. I'm not absolutely sure TypePad is worth paying for compared to what Blogger offers. Blogger is simple to get up & running, simple to post to, and provides some control over the appearance if you are prepared to edit HMTL.

If you want a quick, simple web log for yourself or a team, and do not want to create a highly unique appearance, Blogger is the tool for the job.
User Rating:
4.5 stars

out of 20 user reviews

It's blog for bloggerby gojira - September 7, 2005

Pros: Can do as simple as we want

Cons: Still not cover so many languages and character

Review: So easy to learn for beginner and it's also one of bigger blogger community.
User Rating:
4.5 stars

out of 20 user reviews

Extremely easy, and good for interby mickeymcc - July 19, 2005

Pros: Easy to use and free

Cons: Not a lot of advanced, but many won't need that

Review: It has enough of a professional look for most. Easy and quick. That's what you need with a blog site.
User Rating:
4.0 stars

out of 20 user reviews

This is just perfect! As long as its free...by nixclusive - June 14, 2005

Pros: Free, easy to use.

Cons: no video support

Review: This is simply way beyond just 6! I think the editors need to understand how exactly a blogger tool is supposed to be.
User Rating:
4.5 stars

out of 20 user reviews

Almost Perfectby HarryP2511 - April 7, 2005

Pros: easy, fast, not bad templates, other useful things, can be posted outside Blogger site, Can be monitored by sites like sitemo

Cons: Hard to use other web host to post blog

Review: Good, but several tiny problems

Go Google!

Visit my blog at:
http://harry_potter_blog.blogspot.com
User Rating:
4.5 stars

out of 20 user reviews

Much better than 6.0by philgump - April 6, 2005

Pros: Free, Easy, Dynamic and Customizable

Cons: Slow and Down Time

Review: This is the first time that c|net has really been off base as far as services, Blogger.com is a great free resourse to get your ideas and thoughts out there for the world to see. I am a proud user
http://www.bellsouthpwp.net/a/n/an_broduil/blog.htm
and it has been nothing but wonderful for me. A++ Blogger and thank you!!!
User Rating:
4.5 stars

out of 20 user reviews

It's great.by silas216 - April 6, 2005

Pros: Easy to use

Cons: Lacks advanced features

Review: Never had a problem with it. Highly recommend for anyone just starting out.
User Rating:
3.5 stars

out of 20 user reviews

Easy to use for the most part; lacks some features I'd likeby mounces - April 6, 2005

Pros: Some nice template options; WYSIWYG text; easy basics; it's free!

Cons: Need to know HTML to edit template, add text outside the blog entries, etc.

Review: I like the ease of blogging and posting with BLOGGER. Takes a few minutes to set up initial site, even fewer minutes to add blogs. It's easy to change type styles, colors and sizes. It's free, so that's a big plus, but it also limits some of the features I'd like. I'd like an additional area to list favorites (music, movies, links, etc.), and that's not available here, unless you want to write the code to add it to the template. Based on your interests, though, you can link to other blogs with similar interests.

Definitely worth a look if you want to do some basic blogging, and because it's Google, it's going to get noticed.
User Rating:
5.0 stars

out of 20 user reviews

Blog by Googleby EvansmediaUSA - April 6, 2005

Pros: Excellent Tool

Cons: no cons about it

Review: It's Excellent. You can't beat it. A great tool for all.
User Rating:
3.5 stars

out of 20 user reviews

Easy to use and simpleby calvincopter - April 6, 2005

Pros: HTML format editing, easy to update, and simple.

Cons: Picture hosting with HELLO, Movies can't be posted, and no customer support.

Review: Blogger is a great way to start using a blog if you never used one before.

I had a livejournal blog but I switched over to using Blogger now because of my interest in a real blog. I enjoy using Blogger and I have a different template from another site instead of the orginial template from Blogger.

Overall, it's easy to use and pretty much requires common sense to use.
User Rating:
3.0 stars

out of 20 user reviews

For my use it's perfect.by Harryh - April 6, 2005

Pros: Easy and fast to use.

Cons: A little bit to simple.

Review: Most of all I like that it's easy to use and fast.
User Rating:
2.5 stars

out of 20 user reviews

Needs fixingby wirthy - April 5, 2005

Pros: Easy for beginners

Cons: Right now, there are stability issues

Review: I loved Blogger.com when I first started www.mydrunkthoughts.com. Lately they have been experiencing stability problems. They are apparently addressing the issues but it they can't get it fixed soon enough.
User Rating:
3.0 stars

out of 20 user reviews

Easy To Use, That's Bloggerby zflauaus - April 1, 2005

Pros: Clean Interface, Can Post Pictures, Free

Cons: Not As Feature Rich As Typepad, Not For Long Time Bloggers, Not Wide Selection Of Templates, Could Not Set It Up On My Domain

Review: Blogger is a great service owned by Google. It's a free blogging service that has a clean interface. Google also sends out invites to their beta services, like Gmail. My current blog is on Blogger (izach.blogspot.com). One of the coolest features of Blogger is the ability to audioblog. The idea of audio blogging is when you aren't around a computer and need to update, you can just call up a number, enter your password, and you can record messages to put on your blog.

One of the major things I am disappointed in is the lack of multiple templates. And you also can not bring in your own template, at least as far as my understanding. I was also disappointed that I could not get my blog set up on my domain name, which I have let expire. And after a while, you might just want something new and exciting.

Overall, Blogger is a great blog host for beginners that need something free. But for long-time bloggers, you just need something with more features.
User Rating:
4.0 stars

out of 20 user reviews

Your quick and easy blogging solution.by kemph - April 1, 2005

Pros: Simple. Quick.

Cons: No HTML posts.

Review: It's works wonders for me. Now if thy would just improve iBlog for Apple.
User Rating:
4.5 stars

out of 20 user reviews

It's free and it's easy to useby neilparks - April 1, 2005

Pros: Can make you a blogmaster in minutes

Cons: WYSIWYG interface isn't the greatest

Review: I think the review may be incorrect about allowing only one user to post. I know you can define a group and add members to it. (I personally haven't tried it.)

The default templates and the WYSIWYG editor aren't the greatest, but both can be used in conjunction with a tool such as NVU. I totally customized one of the templates using NVU. And I can use NVU to build structures such as definition lists, and easily paste the result into the Blogger editor.

Other blogging services may have more bells and whistles. But blogger.com is totally free, and getting started with it is easy.
User Rating:
3.0 stars

out of 20 user reviews

Navigating through the site is not as intuitive as other programsby whk109 - April 1, 2005

Pros: Potentially useful for communicating with groups of people

Cons: Not useful at dial up speeds because it's too slow

Review: Although it might be useful for group discussions, it is not easy to navigate around the site and is especially frustrating with dial up speeds. Also, it's too easy to drop the site when trying to back out of a page.
My experience has been frustrating. It doesn't seem to be as user friendly for neophyte internet/computer users - especially because it's too easy to inadvertenty drop the website.
In addition, other users aren't readily picking up on the idea of sharing opinions on a website.
User Rating:
4.5 stars

out of 20 user reviews

Great choice for first-time bloggersby Dignan - April 1, 2005

Pros: Easy to use; very flexible

Cons: Occasional server lag when trying to update

Review: The CNET reviewer is wrong about the cons of Blogger. It is very easy to have multiple users of a blog through Blogger. I also question making such an issue of the lack of video support. I read over 100 blogs a day and less than 5 of those use video. The ability to have video is of minimal importance when choosing blogging software.

All that being said, Blogger is great for the novice and even the advanced user looking for a free service. It is not hard to customize your template. And pictures can be included by linking to an account like Flickr.

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