The Real Blogger Status

In a separate project, I was updating this blog - and in previewing my changes, I observed the familiar demur We're sorry. This gadget is configured incorrectly. ... In the sidebar, underneath "Follow Me". That sight made me wonder if the Followers gadget, when viewed in the live blog, would again work properly - when recently, I had begun wondering if the gadget would ever work, again . And, when I investigated, I found my musings were correct.

Periodically, we see complaints about "Next Blog" content, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . When I click on the "Next Blog" link, I get sent to blogs from many, many different languages. Can I set this to send me to primarily blogs published in English? or "Next Blog" sends me to blogs about "xxxxxxx". My blog is about "yyyyyyy". Why can't I get more blogs about "yyyyyyy"? What these blog owners do not understand is that using "Next Blog" involves compromise.

Long ago, Google provided Google BlogSearch, as one a way of surfing the blogosphere . One of the challenges of using BlogSearch was that we were never sure what we were surfing. Some people wanted to see only "blogspot.com" published Blogger blogs - and other people wanted to see all Blogger blogs, including those not published to "blogspot.com". Some ingenious blog owners published "Blogger blogs" of doubtful integrity, simply using the URL of "blogspot.com" - and people accepted such blogs as righteous, simply because Blog Search would list them in a search page.

One challenging question, that we see from time to time in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , is about one of the neatest Blogger social networking features, Following. How do I find blogs to Follow? And that is a simple question, with not such a simple answer. What came first - the chicken, or the egg?

Some blog owners spend hours pouring over the activity records, Blogger Stats display, and / or visitor logs for their blogs. Sometimes, they see unexplained details which cause needless worry. I clicked on a link in Stats, that referenced activity from "opensocial.googleusercontent.com", and got "Page not found". Is somebody hacking my blog? and What is "opensocial.googleusercontent.com"? I see that URL a lot, in my visitor logs! Fortunately, this is a slightly less mysterious and sinister story. Take a look at the Following community on your blog, or any other blog that interests you. See the icons, of the Followers? Click on one, and watch the contents of the browser status display (generally, the lower left border of the browser window), closely. As the large white popup window opens up, in the middle of your browser, you'll see "opensocial.googleusercontent.com" mentioned in the status display, briefly. The popup window, with t...

The new Next Blog link has been out for almost a full year , and we still see daily complaints. When I press "Next Blog", I get only religious blogs (My name is Jude). or When I use "Next Blog", I only get blogs in Spanish (I only speak English). or "Next Blog" is boring now - it only gives me "crafts" blogs by American housewives (I hate crafts blogs). These are all complaints by people who want to randomly surf blogs, but don't care for truly random results. If you can't accept random surfing results, try less random surfing techniques . Blogger Profile surfing. Following surfing. Google Blog Search (Advanced Mode) surfing. Focus your activity just slightly, and see if you don't get better results. If you start your "Next Blog" surfing from your blog, and don't like the results, put more content into your blog. The more focused your blog content is, the more obvious your abilities and interests will be to "Ne...

For a long time, the natural way for finding multiple, random blogs was "Next Blog" surfing. After a while, spammers found out about this, and "Next\\\\Porn Blog" surfing became the norm. A couple months ago, Blogger developed a new "Next Blog" link which has turned out to be safer - and boring. Fortunately, "Next Blog" surfing isn't the only way to see what's out there in the Blogosphere.

Up until last week, I would advise folks looking for traffic to their blogs that they should publish, publish, publish . Besides friends and family, your initial readers will come through the "Next Blog" link, randomly. You get more "Next Blog" traffic from posting more, less from posting less. And, you'll need this initial traffic. Last week, with the new "Next Blog" link, all of that changed. Now, people hitting "Next Blog" get another blog, but with 2 major differences from the possibility last week. The "next blog" linked to will be chosen for similar content / subject, and same language, as the blog being displayed currently. The "next blog" linked to will not be chosen relevant to updating activity. You're just as likely to get a blog published to 5 years ago, as 5 minutes ago. This gives us two concerns, which we did not have earlier. Finding other blogs of random subject and recent updates won't be as ...

Long ago, I observed that getting readers for your blog started with publishing posts. Thanks to the "Next Blog" link in the navbar, as you published posts, you'd get readers who randomly surfed to your blog . As you got more readers from random access, some readers would become return readers, which would encourage you to publish more. Which would bring you more readers. And so on. That was a great strategy on Bloggers part, for a Blogosphere with Relatively few blogs. No spammers. Unfortunately, the spammers of the Internet figured that was the perfect way to get readers to their splogs , too. And BlogSpot splog farms were born. This week, we have The New "Next Blog" link . For any blog with any given subject matter, a reader hitting "Next Blog" gets another blog in the same language, and with the same subject matter. As noted by several readers of this blog, there's one thing missing now. "Next Blog" now makes no attempt to look...

Just a couple days ago, I observed that the "Next Blog" link in the navbar was being redesigned . So, it's here. Click on "Next Blog" from above. Now, you'll get other blogs in English, and for this blog, other techie blogs. No more hacking, porn, or spam blogs, from clicking "Next Blog" - unless the blog that you're currently viewing contains hacking, porn, or spam. Which means no more hacking, porn, or spam from this blog, from clicking "Next Blog" - period. The end of hacking, porn, and spam in the NextBlogosphere. Bravo, Blogger. Maybe you'll see a third difference. Now, any randomly accessed other blog may, or may not be, recently updated. This won't please everybody, unfortunately. Before it would often bring me to sites I had no interest in or were not in english, but at least it brought me to recently updated sites. Now when I do it I often get stuck finding a ton of sites all on a single topic, and many of the...

I've been writing about the navbar, and the "Next Blog" link, for some time - about its random nature , about its dangers , and recently about its design changes . Soon, we are promised a major functionality change in "Next Blog". Blogger Buzz: Coming up Next... suggests that soon, the link will let us surf to blogs with both language and subject affinity to our blogs. This is a great idea, and one that's been long overdue. This has been coming, since well before January 2008 . But like all great ideas, one should consider the details. It will be interesting to see what a blog with a totally unique language / subject pair will link to. Also, how granular will the subject association be? For that matter, how will blog subject be determined? What of blogs with multiple subjects - or of course some blogs with no subject, simply ramblings? And will this allow folks to intentionally (or un intentionally) surf to porn or spam, if they are currently viewing ...

Besides surfing blogs using Following , which will let you identify other bloggers with possibly common interests (hoping that anybody who Follows your blog would be somewhat interested in what also interests you), we have the possibility of surfing blogger profiles using profile keywords. When you edit your Blogger profile , you can specify keywords which correspond to specific things that interest you. Having done that, those keywords become links, to profiles of other bloggers who have specified those same keywords. Be sure to check the spelling - you'll be able to test it immediately. >> Top

Occasionally, we see signs of confusion shown by people trying to Follow their friends blogs. I'm trying to Follow my friends blog, but I only see "You have followed this URL, but we couldn't find a feed for it." or My friends tell me that my feed isn't updating. I made it private last week. Both of these statements come from people who aren't aware of the implications of the limitation that private blogs do not have newsfeeds . A blog that requires an invitation, to be viewed, requires that people become acquainted before the blog can be viewed. If your blog is private, a prospective viewer has to email you and ask for permission, before he can view your blog. Somebody surfing the Following community of one of your designated readers, and happening upon your private blog, simply sees the well known advice It doesn't look like you have permission to view this blog. Following lets strangers become acquainted with each other, by surfing to blogs that are ...

This blog is The Real Blogger Status , and it focuses on Blogger blogging. Look at the Following community for this blog, and you'll see all sorts of bloggers, with all sorts of interests - stated explicitly and implicitly. Looking now, I see (for instance) gardening, greeting cards, and rap music. And, I see a few Followers who are Following other blogs about blogging. The vast majority of the bloggers who Follow this blog do so because they are interested in developing and maintaining their Blogger blogs, and this blog - hopefully - provides them insight. Occasionally, someone interested in Blogger blogging- and Following a blog that's published by someone else who's Following my blog - will surf the Following community of that blog, happen upon this blog, and decide to Follow this blog. Generally, that will be because the new Follower is also interested in Blogger blogging. In other words, I will gain a Follower who's interested in Blogger blogging, because this...

Recently, Blogger launched Following , which looks to me like an eventual replacement for the "Next Blog" link. By Following the right blogs - those with some Followers, and that are owned by bloggers who are Following other blogs - you immediately become part of a global network of bloggers and blogs. By Following the blogs that interest you, you focus your surfing on your interests, and do the same for those who surf to your blogs. If you Follow the right blogs, you help attract traffic, through the backlinks to your profile, and there to your blogs. And as you see your Followers and blog traffic increase, you will be encouraged to publish more posts, which will encourage still more traffic to your blog. This provides the same effect as traffic from the "Next Blog" link, except it will be from bloggers who share your interests, as you Follow blogs that interest you. Traffic from bloggers who share your interests (and are interested in the content of your blog...

The Blogosphere, including Blogger blogs both published to Blog*Spot, and to non-Blog*Spot URLs, is immense, and is growing constantly. In the Blogosphere, you'll find blogs created as a "first blog" by beginning bloggers, as well as blogs created by those who have dozens of other blogs already. Anybody with Internet access is entitled to make his / her own contribution. If you want to estimate, in any 10 minute slice of time, what blogs are being published, you can examine the Recently Updated Blogs list. That list, however, only shows you what blogs are being updated - it in no way shows you what blogs, in total, occupy the Blogger portion of the Blogosphere. In reality, there is no way a single, flat list could ever enumerate the entire blog population. When you view Recently Updated Blogs on your own, you'll understand this to be true.

The Blogosphere, like the web in general, is subject to attack and misuse by malicious people, even as it is available for legitimate use by any person. Until a month ago, the "BlogSpot.Com" region of the Blogosphere was known for rampant misuse. I warned of this misuse, by referring to use of the "Next Blog" link as "Porn\\\\Next Blog" surfing . This analogy of mine was not a great stretch of the imagination. You could see this fact reflected in the blogs visible in "Next Blog". Besides the illegitimate blogs - the ones published for hacking and for porn and spam distribution - a large number of legitimate blogs, when visible, would have no Navbar. The task of removing the Navbar is not at all complex.

Several months ago, I started a series of posts which I entitled "Adult FriendFinder" , or "AFF". Adult FriendFinder has been long known for providing Internet advertisements using pictures of "local" women, with many of their pictures frequently described as pornography. An unidentified criminal organisation is currently producing a large number of blogs, which are being hosted by BlogSpot, and which use Adult FriendFinder ads as their signature. These blogs are maintained in great volume, so when you use the "Next Blog" link in the Navbar for any amount of time, you will likely surf to one or more. The volume of these spam blogs, or splogs, in BlogSpot, is one of the reasons why I, and a few other bloggers, now advise those with blogs read by sensitive people, to remove the Navbar from your blog . I make this advice, ever mindful of Blogger repeated advice that the Navbar should not be tampered with . And this is why I currently refer to usi...