Blogger is having its first major upgrade since being acquired by Google some years ago.

“The biggest change of all is perhaps the least immediately visible, but it affects the entire underlying structure of Blog*Spot. What used to happen was that Blogger would create static HTML files on your Blog*Spot account every time you published, and those files would remain there unchanged until your next update. In the new version, adding a new post simply updates your information in our database. Then, when someone wants to see any of the pages on your blog, those pages are created for them dynamically, on the fly.

This makes the process of updating your blog much simpler and faster. You don’t have to remember to republish anymore, or decide whether to do a republish index only or republish all. The instant you save a new post, template design, or settings change, your blog is updated. No more waiting for the publishing indicator to creep its way up to 100%.” via

So basically Blogger is a hell of a lot more like WordPress than ever before. Wow. Actually impressed with the upgrades here. You can read more about them here.

More Coverage:
TechMeme

Iranian President has begun to blog according to reports from Iranian State Television and Al-Jazeera. While the move largely appears to be a publicity stunt, it will be an interesting read as I find most of his radical sentiment and anti-US and Israeli rhetoric rather amusing.

I mean as a leader of a state he’s one of the first to take to blogging but still I wonder how much control over the blog he has and what his intended reach is. If it’s people, I wonder how effective his blog will be to rallying the people around his cause. But this is the next logical step in this strange sometimes hot – sometimes cold war between Islamo-Fascists and the Western Counterparts. President Bush has largely stated in the past he’s totally in favor of blogs. I wonder if now that the Iranian President has a blog if he will make a blanket statement stating that blogs are a weapon of the Axis of Evil. It’s only a matter of time before Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden starts its blog.

In his first entry Ahmadinejad wrote about his childhood, the country’s Islamic revolution and Iran’s war with Iraq.

The blog also asks readers to participate in an online poll which asks if they think the United States and Israel are “pulling the trigger for another world war”.

The blog is translated into English, French and Arabic. via

Mike Arrington and the CrunchNetwork have unveiled CrunchGear, and a brand new team headed up by a former Gawker editor John Biggs.

The Crunch Network is expanding today – CrunchGear, our newest blog, was just released into the wild on a shiny new server. CrunchGear is all about new gadgets, gear and computer hardware. We’ve covered gadgets occasionally in the past (Sonos, Eye-Fi, Sony MyLo and others) and this audience in clearly intrested in the newest stuff to hit the market.

We’ve brought in a whole new team to run CrunchGear. The editor is John Biggs, who was previously the editor of Gizmodo. Under his watch, page views at Gizmodo grew from from 4 million to over 12 million per month. He is a seasoned journalist and blogger and knows how to write about exactly what his audience wants to read. John is working with a top team of writers, including Blake Robinson who writes the popular music blog audiomonger. More information on the team is on the CrunchGear About page. CrunchGear was designed by Jeremy Baines, the founder of ThisSideUp in London.

Very interesting and a very wise logical move for the CrunchNetwork.

Darn it. You mean we aren’t supposed to use the internet to blister our competition with turse words? I mean seriously its the Wild West out here but its about freedom and hopefully people wake up and use it wisely. I, admit to in the past not using my freedom as wisely. But I also grew up in Montana shooting assault rifles so I have an excuse. Really.

A US judge has launched a blistering attack on the blogosphere, saying it is a minefield of potential litigation.

Judge Edward Fadeley, retired associate justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, called the blogosphere “a veritable Wild West of verbal ambushes and shootouts, with very little fear of legal recourse to keep character assassination, defamation and dirty business tricks in check.”

via

Six Apart unveils yet another product aimed at the business/enterprise crowd.

Today we’re excited to announce the release of TypePad Mobile, a free application for your Palm, Windows Mobile or Symbian Series 60 smartphone that lets you post photos and entries to your TypePad blogs and photo albums with just a few clicks. It’s just the latest step in our goal to support blogging from wherever, whenever. (via)

No seriously I’m really disappointed that Six Apart has yet again launched another product aimed at the business/enterprise crowd. It again leaves me so thankful that I’ve invested in switching to WordPress who clearly has it figured out by focussing on both enterprise users (Automattic) and us little guys (WordPress.org).

The President and Co-Founder of Six Apart has been blogging so much I’m starting to wonder if she even exists any more. I’m starting to wonder if she even cares about blogging. I mean come on if the President of the so-called leading Blogging Applications Developer in the World can’t even get off her chair to blog once in awhile why even bother developing a product to encourage folks to blog. It certainly doesnt show that you care about your product.

That’s my opinion and I’m sticking with it.

Jason Calcanis is taking a few days off from blogging after the data spill.

Great take a few days off. Here’s a few great ten things to do with those days off to fix this mess and right the ship at AOL.

1) AOL Needs a Blogger Backed PR Campaign

AOL hasnt had good PR in so long I can’t even think of anything good about this company. Simply put AOL needs to fix the data leak God only knows how this is going to happen. But here are some of my views on how to right the ship once known as America Online.

America Online was once about community. It’s where I started out. And a lot of you who read this blog. Don’t deny it. Blogs are all about community. Recently I attended WordCamp a community oriented software. Jason Calacanis sits on a community goldmine and he just doesn’t even realize it. It’s called BlogSmith it powers all the Weblogs Inc sites. If AOL wants to change the world it needs a new name. And that name is BlogSmith. Blogs are at the center of a community driven internet. Forget worrying about the old failed AOL model innovate or die. Your at a crossroads. And Calacanis down with the ship you go if you dont figure this out. Although money does fix a lot of ships.

Return to your community roots by unleasing BlogSmith to the tech masses.

First off its just the thing AOL needs. It would instantly make Tech News. It would be big news. Maybe big enough to make us forget about the data spill. Developers would be excited about a new product to play with. And we would forever love you if you supported this product and helped us build around. Software is what you sold in the old days and you could easily do the same in the web 2.0.

Build a solid ad network into the blogging platform and all is a go. We forget the pain, the lies, and the privacy violations. Otherwise its down with ship captain. Say goodbye to Ted, Jason and the rest of the team. Layoffs are coming and I prefer to start at the top. With all the customers.

Like Robert Scoble before him, yet another prominent blogger has left Microsoft

Niall Kennedy has been on the Windows Live team that has taken a lot of heat lately for overspending and Niall apparently felt like it was a good time to exit through the left stage door, you know the one where he goes and starts his own company.

I’ve been a big follower of Niall Kennedy for a long time its good to see folks leave to go do different things than the traditional tech companies. Innovation abounds. Good Luck Niall.

Ok, I know Jason doesn’t work for AOL’s search department but he’s attempted to plaster himself as AOL 2.0’s new face in the blogosphere which is just fine. His response to the AOL’s leaked data issue is weak. First off Time Warner as a cable company has often tracked user data, doesnt believe in Net Neutrality. His latest project Netscape.com doesnt even use RSS feeds because well its always been about how to get users back to their site rather than how to make users happy. Even he continues the famed legacy of AOL being truly evil.

AOL released this data around the same time that they are going to be giving away free broadband access to the AOL Services. No not freebroadband just free access to AOL.com once you have broadband. Now this may seem pretty good to you but I have to wonder if this is that great of a deal. I mean they want you to use their site for free and yet they are more than willing to release your name, your searches, and all your personal data that is no one else’ business not even my mother. I can tell you one thing for sure. I am no longer going to be using any AOL product until I have reassurances that their company isnt tracking, storing , or selling my personal information.

Yes, I am the old snark blogger and in the tradition and spirit of Duncan I’m using foul mouthed language for those of you that were here. Even Matt used the MotherF Bomb. Although since when is getting laid foul mouthed? BTW CopyBlogger, shockingly massive funny headlines work well too! WordCamp ‘06 was personally a massive hit. On numerous levels. Personally, I enjoyed the one on one social networking way more than anything else. I’m a much better intrapersonal networker than an online personal networker. I’m highly unsocial except for a few people in the blogosphere. Suprisingly enough.

Tonight was all about social networking on a personal level. The quality of the neworking was rich. Interacting with Aaron Brazell was awesome. I wish folks like him were more localized and as the blogosphere grows that’s going to happen. Investment seeds were planted, concepts were mapped out. More Silicon Valley & LA Parties were booked for the rest of the week. Somehow with me ending up hanging out with some celebs in Hollywood on Sunday.
Don’t ask don’t tell. What happens in San Fran stays in San Fran. Right…

It’s a small world (Why don’t I live here again?). Memories of Jack of All Blogs were discussed. And the night ended with our table being removed with just Aaron, Matt Mullenweg, and myself hovering around it discussing the Pre-WordPress days and various histories of blogging and other interesting facts. We discussed embarassing moments, improvements, technological awesomeness, and the ladies. Yes, the ones that often drive us to be as awesome as we are.

I dont think I would change much next year if they decide to do it again. I might expand the session depth as far as higher quality content and maybe some more developer focussed discussions rather user based discussions. I didnt mind helping discuss in depth two huge sessions I’m really passionate about Monetizing Your Blog, and Video Blogging. In fact I loved talking and the after talk around the discussions was even better than the conversation during the discussion.

Since you folks couldnt take part in as much social networking, here’s my list of some of the coolest folks to network with. It’s like getting laid without being there.

Top 7 1/2 People To Network With @ WordCamp (In No particular Order)
1) Glenda, who likes the Automattic Team of Hotties, what’s she’s really trying to say here is Matt is a really humble guy, who is wise beyond his years. And well so are all of them. Didnt hang out with her for more than 27 1/2 seconds but the insights were hilarity.

2) Greg Narain, SocialRoots.com check out Greg’s blog for lots of cool stuff but overall a very cool guy with some awesome insights into how to help bloggers in a changing industry.

3) Pat, ConversionRater.com. Just a very cool cat. Had a great time talking to him before the alcohol hit the blood stream at full steam.

4) Greg Marlin, Really Big Networks. Wow this guy and I have way to many cool things in common. Look for some very cool stuff coming from this blog network that I’d never heard of but seems to be have all the right connections.

5) Aaron Brazell, a wonderful suprise just chilling hanging with B5’s Tech Junkie. Had some great insights good conversation and a decent sense of humor.

6) Matt Mullenweg, Doh. Great guy to hang with and talk about all things WordPress. History of blogging. History of Blogging Platforms and well the incestous nature of blog networks and the people that run them.

7) Podz, Cant say enough good things about Planet Podz and his cherrio sense of humor.

7 1/2) New Users, I met a lot of new WordPress users. This gets me excited to see some serious growth hopefully we will see many more new users jump on the band wagon here.

A New Blogging Elite… no. But a true group of passionate WordPress users? That showed up in support of a product we all believe in and get for free. Yeah. I see that.

I confess I’m already a bit tired and i need caffeine. I think it was that amazing barbecue we had for lunch. So I’m half dozing off/spacing out during this session in order to try and reboot. Here are some notes I found from the web about this session.

Here are the notes for the presentation.
WordPress isn’t just for blogging
Think of posts as data objects and comments as subpages. A post could be a CD and the comments could be the track listings.

(via)

WordPress Versatility
o When a post isn’t a “post”
o Posts or pages as data objects
o Comments: children of a post/page
o Forget about chronology, order according to your criteria
o Structured blogging
o Why use WP for things other than blogs?

Plugin System
o Radical mods without core WP changes
o Why use plugins? Aren’t core mods faster to do?

WordPress “Pages”
o Non-chronological by design
o Hierarchical
o wp_list_pages();
o Subpage Listing Plugin (self-plug!)

Examples and Audience Suggestions
o e-commerce/product catalog
o petition/sign-up list
o personal health log
o directory

Improvements in 2.1 and beyond
o “Static” front page (2.1)
o Better management of large number of pages (2.1/2.2)

via