SxSW: Blogger Party

Live from Club DeVille, Austin

SxSW: Blogger wins Best Weblog Tool

Wow! Thanks very much to everyone who voted for us in the 2006 Weblog Awards. And it wasn't just Blogger picking up the phat lewt at this year's Bloggies. The following Blogger blogs also snagged top prizes:

• Tokyo Girl (Best Asian Weblog)
• Baghdad Burning (Best African or Middle Eastern Weblog)
• My Boyfriend is a ... (Best European Weblog)
• Girl with a One-Track Mind (Best British or Irish Weblog)
• Vegan Lunch Box (Best Food Weblog)
• It's Raining Noodles (Best Teen Weblog)
• PostSecret (Best American Weblog, Best Topical Weblog, Best Community Weblog, Best New Weblog AND Weblog of the Year)

Congrats to all the winners and nominees.

SxSW: Blogger Party Tonight

If you are in the Austin area this evening, head on down to Club de Ville at 6:30p for the Blogger shindig we're hosting at SxSW.

Come have a drink on us and pick up the latest Blogger wearables.

SxSW: Tony Pierce

After the "Blogging Brainstorming" panel.

Our Man in Hannover

Last week, we announced with Sony Ericsson that their new generation of camera phones will include integration with Blogger.

This week, Blogger engineer Jussi Myllymaki is on the scene at the CeBIT conference in Germany to help with the public unveiling of these 3.2 megapixel sweethearts.

Naturally, Jussi's got a sweet moblog to share snapshots of the futuristic action in Hannover.

Updated Places in Profiles

Just a small FYI — we've updated Blogger's Profile Editor with a few more places:

• Serbia and Montenegro
• Palestinian Territory
• East Timor

Subdomain Availability Checker

Have you ever tried creating a Blogger blog, and every address you can think of for it is already taken? We just added a 'Check Availability' link on the Create Blog page to suggest available alternatives:

Homeless in Greensboro

The Greensboro News-Record just posted an article about Michael Brown, a homeless man who is using Blogger to describe his (and his family's) experiences. Here's a snippet from the article:

"After Brown, 43, and his family were evicted from their northeast Greensboro home earlier this month, he turned to the public library and its computers for answers. Once online, he couldn't find what he was looking for: advice from someone who was homeless."

"So, he took up the task himself. He began posting to a Web log, or blog. There, he began to tell his story -- how he became homeless and how he was dealing with it."

And a snippet from his blog:

"Since I currently have no car, I do a lot of walking; I've passed under a lot of bridges, and the relatively slow pace gives me time to really scan for signs of human habitation. The evidence is not under all bridges, but it's under enough of them to give some idea of the scope of the problem. It's usually something subtle: an abandoned blanket, a cardboard box strategically placed, perhaps some old camping gear (usually an indicator that its owner isn't too far away). I've only once actually glimpsed someone sleeping under a bridge. I wasn't homeless yet myself at the time, so of course, the only thing that ran through my mind is "there but for the grace of God go I."

"Little did I know..."

Can't Touch This

MC Hammer is blogging on blogspot — check it out!

He's using Blogger Mobile to post photos via his Sidekick, and is using Audioblogger to post audio clips.

Blogger Widget for Mac Dashboard

I’m really excited to introduce you to the Blogger widget, one of the three widgets for Mac OS X 10.4 now available on Google Labs. This li’l guy makes it even easier to post to your blog from your Mac: pop open the Dashboard (F12 usually works), type some text, press one of the alluring, shiny buttons, and then spend the next few minutes flipping widgets back and forth from front to back because the animation is so cool.

If you have multiple blogs, you can have multiple Blogger widgets open, each one tuned to its own blog. And, if space gets cramped, just click the blue title bar at the top of the widget to collapse it up, window shade–style.

Some handy widget tips:

• The text box works pretty much like Compose mode in the full editor on Blogger. You can type HTML tags in there, but also use ⌘-B to make words bold and ⌘-I to make them italic.
• If you start a post in the widget and then realize you need to add a picture or do something else that you need the full editor for, just save your post as a draft. A link will appear that’ll jump you right into Blogger to pick up your post where you left off.
• The widget checks periodically to see if there’s a newer version, so if we fix bugs or add new features you’ll be sure to know.
  
• Your password gets stored in the Keychain, so it’s nice and secure.

If you need any help or have any cool widgety ideas, we’ve set up a special Google Group for the Mac widgets. Don’t forget to check out the other two widgets, too: Gmail and Search History. They’re really slick and I think you’ll like them a lot.