The Real Blogger Status

Owners of private blogs have, periodically, lamented the lack of options for distribution of comments and posts. We've seen a few queries, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . How do I let my readers subscribe to my private blog? There's no good answer, to please everybody, here. You can't use EMail, FeedBurner, or Reading List, for sharing private blog content. FeedBurner requires the blog comments / posts newsfeeds - and private blogs don't produce newsfeeds .

Occasionally, we see real confusion, involving the email address. I can login to Blogger - but I can only change my email address, or remove myself from the blog. This is a blog owner who is logged in as a blog author, who now sees just two dashboard menu pages. Posts Settings In many cases, this will be a blog owner who is trying to recover access to the blog , having forgotten the account name - or who is inadvertently using a second Blogger account . Running afoul of the Blogger / Google blind login , the would be owner has just managed to login - but sees a very empty dashboard. And, the confusion may not end there.

Setting up the ability to post to your blog, using email, is quite simple. In Blogger - you just have one essential setting - the password. You setup the password as the "secretWords", in the dashboard page at Settings - Email. You can use any "secretWords" that you like - though if you have any concern about keeping spam out of the blog , you really should make the "secretWords" hard to guess .

Blog owners have been asking, for years, how to use labels, with Mail-to-Blogger . Mail-to-Blogger uses an email editor, for composing a post - and is going to lack features that are not provided by the email editor. Labels are one example of what you don't get, when you use email to publish a post to your blog.

Some blog owners use Mail-to-Blogger, for publishing to their blogs, without considering the issues. Some owners can't get Mail-to-Blogger to work. I get Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: or I don't get any error - and the post never shows up in my Posts list. Other owners have no problems getting theirs to work, and later find posts that they didn't send - and don't appreciate . Where did all of the spam come from? Using Mail-to-Blogger seems simple - but maybe should not be treated so. The Mail-to-Blogger email address, at Settings - Mobile and email, is a major part of the challenge , in this case.

Some blog readers wonder about how to follow blogs, recently turned private by their owners. We see some concern , in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I Follow a blog which was recently made private. Its entry in my dashboard Reading List froze, and I can't get it working by removing and re adding! This would be reader does not realise the results of making a blog private. Private blogs do not publish blog feeds . When a blog is made private, the feed stops - and the Reading List and all other feed subscriptions - comments and posts - stop updating. With no feed published, a blog cannot be added to Reading List - though the members picture icon may remain visible, in the Followers cloud.

We see occasional questions from blog owners, and readers, about options for reading posts, from a given blog. The most obvious way to read the posts is to read the blog, as published, online. If the owner of a blog that interests you uses Google+ publicity , reading either online, or in the Google+ stream, may be your choice. For Blogger hosted content, both owners and readers have a few more possibilities.

As more people choose Google+ Comments for their blogs, we're seeing concern from confused blog owners, mentioning lack of control. There is no option for comment moderation in my blog's settings. My Comments Settings only includes the option to change Location. and I don't get notified about any comments published against my blog. There is no Setting for Comment Notification Email, either. These owners are discovering one of the design simplicities in Google+ Comments . With Google+ Comments, anybody can post - and share - a reference to any content, on the Internet, that they can view. If your blog is public, any post from your blog can be shared in Google+. If someone shares a post from your blog, and you are in a Circle where the post is shared, you may see the shared post in your Google+ stream. You have no control over content in your stream - even if the content references your blog - which you do not share.

Some blog owners don't always think about the various email settings, which are part of their Blogger blogs, and the possible effects to their email - or somebody else's email. There are several settings, where a blog owner may enter an email address. Email posts to Comment Moderation. Comment Notification Email. These settings don't require acceptance by the recipient, making for some interesting possibilities for causing problems in other people's email , as well as one's own email.

Occasionally blog owners get confused about the effects of blog ownership changes, and various Settings values. We'll see odd questions in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . I just changed the email address of the blog owner - but comments are still going to the old address. and How do I change the email address used in emailing my posts to my blog? Not all blog owners realise that blog ownership, and various Settings values, are separate from each other.

Mail-To-Blogger is a very simple way of using your email client or mobile computer, to submit photos and text as posts in your Blogger blog. As simple as it is, it offers less options than some folks would wish. Some post content can't be immediately published, using email - but must be later added into the post, using Post Editor.

For some time now, Blogger has supported use of mobile devices, for posting to our blogs. Picture blogs, containing photos taken with your camera phone, are a popular activity for many bloggers. Mail-To-Blogger , which used an email client instead of the browser based Post Editor, sent in many different formats and protocols, was the beginning. Now, we have the ability to post directly from our smart phones. You can enable Mobile Posting, for your blog, from Settings - Email & Mobile - Posting Options. Blogger provides detailed instruction, in Blogger Help: How does Blogger Mobile work? . Recently, Blogger added mobile client support, so your readers can enjoy your blog from their mobile devices. Now, new templates will include special formats designed to work better with small mobile screens. In Draft Blogger , under Settings - Email & Mobile, we have Mobile Template, where you can now enable use of a new mobile template for your blog. To make you comfortable befor...

In early 2010, Blogger issued a typically terse warning of a security problem, with blogs that use Mail-to-Blogger for publishing posts. To prevent abuse, a recent update to disabled easily guessable secret words. Please update your Mail2Blogger secret word. I've referred to the importance of the "secret word" some time ago - and apparently this year, a few blogs are being hit by the vulnerability.

Mail-to-Blogger is so simple, some people don't see the forest for the trees. Occasionally, we see the anxious query How do I post by email? as if it's a complicated process. But, it's not.

As I said in my previous post New Blogger June 2008 - The Post Editor , the changes offered to us, today, represent the first major overhaul since December 2006. Of course, I overlooked the rollout of Draft Blogger, without which this update would not be possible. So, having looked at the Post Editor, let's look at Settings, where we see changes in the Basic and Comments tabs. There are interesting changes in Basic . We have the promised "Import blog" - "Export blog" links. And next to that, a major change - "Delete blog", which now leads to a Delete your blog confirmation screen This will permanently delete your blog including all posts. You can create another blog at this address using the Google Account you're currently logged in with, however, we can't restore your blog posts once you choose to delete your blog. Before you delete your blog, do you want to export it ? Comments gets a possibly popular improvement. "Comment Form P...

Occasionally, someone asks How can I require approval of any post before it's published? and my typical answer will be You can't, using the post editor. Any author can publish a post, and you can only moderate posts after the fact. The key words there are "post editor".

Recently, we noted the ability of blog Authors to setup their own Mail-to-Blogger access code to a given blog. As a blog Author (aka "Guest" member), you will note a new Setting tab - "Email", where you now have the ability to setup your own Mail-to-Blogger address - with the public portion of the address set as your normal MTB public address. This is the same feature, that you may have enjoyed on your own blog, as an administrator / owner.

Sal X (name changed to protect) writes I have to continually delete spam posts from my blog. Help! Sal, The public does not, generally, have the ability to post to your blog. There is one known way for unknown parties to post to your blog, and that is using a Mail-to-Blogger Address, when you set one up. The Mail-to-Blogger Address is a protected email address that you (and your friends) can use to post to your blog by using email. The address has 2 components - public and private. The public component, that you can't change, is based upon your (if you are the original blog owner) email address. The private component, that you can change, is based upon a secret, that only you (and your friends) should know. If an unknown party finds out your email address, and can guess the private component, they can easily email posts to your blog. If your email address is at all known, and you want to use Mail-to-Blogger for posting, you better make the private component pretty hard...

Every day, we see the question "How do I let my friends know when my blog is updated"? My personal preference would be to use a syndication feed (Atom or RSS) . A newsfeed reader is very convenient, and easy to use. But a newsfeed isn't universally useful. If your blog is private (requires authentication to read ), newsfeeds won't be available . Some readers can't, or won't, use a newsfeed reader.