For all those who stuck around with Google’s free blog hosting service Blogger, Google has just rolled out the new Template Designer. Finally, the folks at Blogger.com realized that the old selection of templates are too outdated and decided to introduced some new templates that you can use on your blogs as well as a new set of tools for customizing your blogs including designing your own Blogger template. This is also good news for those who wants to start their own blogs just now but don’t want to use WordPress.com.

Google’s Blogger Template Designer currently offers 15 new professional templates, custom blog layouts that you can apply in each of the new templates, professional background images coming from iStockphoto plus several color, fonts and other customization features that you can use.

If you have an existing Blogger account, you can try the Template Designer out by going to Blogger in Draft. Once you’ve come up with a great design, you can simply save it

The Blogger Template Designer is  currently hosted in Blogger in Draft where you are free to try it out on your blog. You can see the Template Designer if you click on the Layout link. Once you’ve come up with the best template and design for your blog you can opt to apply it on your blog.

It would be interesting to note why it took Google this long to come up with such features. I almost thought that Google is about to shut down Blogger since it has not been given too much attention the past few months. But then again, given the millions of blogs hosted on Blogger.com, Google will definitely put this service down.

If you are currently maintaining a Blogger blog, check out the new Template Designer and share with us your experience.

The mobile version of WordPress seems to be having a tour across smartphone platforms right now.  Or is it perhaps because of the resounding fact that the future of blogging is mobile?  Anyway, after appearing on the Android market for all Android phone users and mobile bloggers to use, WordPress 1.0 is now also available for BlackBerry devices. And like the Android version, the BlackBerry version is equally robust and quite good if not better.

WordPress for BlackBerry has been in beta for quite some time now and after getting subjected to the scrutiny of selected beta testers, Automattic finally decided to take the app out of beta mode and release the final version of WordPress 1.0 for this smartphone.

So, what’s in store for all of you BlackBerry users who blog on your WordPress installation using your smartphone? The app lets you write posts, upload photos and videos, edit pages and manage comments on your blogs.  It supports both self-hosted blogs as well as WordPress.com blogs.

Aside from the usual mobile blogging features of other WordPress mobile app, this one for the BlackBerry also features:

• overall enhancements to the speed and stability of the app
• streamlined UI and functionality relating to comment moderation
• support for HD video service VideoPress
• ability to record and upload videos from your phone

Since I don’t have a BlackBerry yet, I can’t test how good this app is. I really wish I could compare it with the Android version. Perhaps next week, after I got my BlackBerry Bold 9700. But the app must be so great that Darnell mentioned something like this app putting the iPhone version into shame. Now I’m intrigued.

Sometime in July 2009, we’ve covered this online life management site called ZooLoo.com.  Now, after several months, ZooLoo has launched a new blogging service, an iPhone app and a storefront with one main objective – to give you a facility to promote yourself and your interest from your own domain and social networks.

The site’s new blogging service is called the “Graffiti”. It allows you to publish links, thoughts, status, quotes, photos and videos to the site and share these as a blog posts to on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn. The site lets you post content either from the ZooLoo homepage or by using a Share button or through their  newly released iPhone app. (iTunes Link)

As for their  new storefront, the site gives you various paid packages that they offer. The free service is still there, but if you want your blogging service hosted on a paid account you can choose from the different packages which have the following key features:

• Custom domain names
• Web Dashboards that bring all of your interests into one place
• Patent-pending privacy manager
• Customizable site pages using ZooLoo’s site creator
• Third party tracking integration
• Photo manager and gallery.

Each feature can be purchased with monthly micro-payments.

If you want to run ZooLoo on an enterprise setting, they also have solutions for this purpose.

Automattic just added a new application to the many available WordPress versions. This time the target are mobile bloggers using Android Phones. The new WordPress 1.0 app for Android has just been released and one thing I can say is that – this app is definitely a good one.

I don’t know if I’m just really excited to use the app on my new Nexus One although I’ve already installed a similar app called wpToGo. But having a mobile version of a WordPress from the official developer is certainly different.

Anyway if you’ve used wpToGo for Android before, WordPress 1.0 is almost the same since it was used as the foundation for this app. In fact, wpToGo will now be discontinued because all the development efforts will now be focused on WordPress 1.0 for Android.

So, if you haven’t used any mobile version on WordPress, now maybe the right time to try one out. If you’ve got any Android device download the app and enjoy these key features:

• Configure and manage multiple blogs
• Comment moderation including the ability to reply to comments
• Create and Edit Posts including categories, tags and photos
• Create and Edit Pages
• Get notified of new comments in the Android notification bar

I’ve just installed the app on my Nexus One and it’s pretty cool. Setting up multiple blog accounts is a breeze. Likewise posting new blog post is also fast. My only gripe is that the app does not allow you to publish post quickly. You need to save it first to local draft before you can push it to your blog. But it’s just a minor issue and does not really affect the app’s usability.

Here you go, the endless updates to everybody’s favorite blogging software, WordPress 9 is now available for download. Codenamed “Carmen” after the legendary jazz vocalist Carmen McRae, WordPress 9 boasts of several nice features with the built-in image editor as probably the one feature you would surely like.

If you’re looking at WordPress 2.9 from the point of view of a user, here are its nicest features:

1. Global undo/”trash” feature – lets you restore posts or comments which you might have accidentally delete.

2. Built-in image editor – crop, edit, rotate, flip and scale your image attachments before publishing your post.

3. Batch plugin update and compatibility checking – lets you update 10 plugins at once, also check whether plugins are compatible with new releases of WordPress.

4. Easier video embeds – this feature is going to make all our lives easier. This will let you paste a URL on its own line and WordPress will turn it into a video embed code. Supports YouTube, DailyMotion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revisions3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy and WordPress.tv.

If your inclination is a bit on the technical side of  WordPress blogs, here are just some of the features under the hood:

1. rel=canonical support for betther SEO.

2. automatic database optimization support, which you can enable in your wp-config.php file by adding define(‘WP_ALLOW_REPAIR’, true);.

3. Themese can register “post thumbnails” which allow them to attach an image to the post, especially useful for magazine-style themes

4. a new comment meta table that allows arbitrary key/value pairs to be attached to comments, just like posts, so you can now expand greatly what you can do in the comment framework.

5. Custom post types have been upgraded with better API support so you can juggle more types than just post, page, and attachment.

Alright, time to do some WordPress upgrading folks. Good luck!

Despite the uncertainty of the economy and the convenience of microblogging, blogging is hot again, baby — and during a gold rush, it’s the shovel salesmen who make the most money. The Joy of Tech shares the real secret to monetizing your blog. Time to polish those event management skills.

A recently launched iPhone application called Say What? allows integrated searching of Twitter, Digg, plus thousands of forums and blogs, from one interface.

iCrossing’s application has actually been freely available for about a month now, but I’ve only just discovered it.

While I personally don’t search in Digg much, the ability to search across both a significant section of the web (blogs and forums) as well as Twitter sounds appealing.

More →

The 9rules blog network just opened its doors for a new round of submissions. If you think your blog’s got what it takes to join their network, submit your blog here. Hurry: submissions close at 11:59 PM EST. More →

Intense Debate may have been acquired by Automattic (the people behind WordPress), but Disqus remains the blogosphere’s favorite comment networking service. Not content to rest on their laurels, they’re rolling out a slew of new features with Disqus 3 next week.

Now all I need is a white label version of Disqus, and I just might use it on my blogs.

The Contextual Partnership Plugin For WordPress Provides Free Advertising To Help Promote Your Blog & Get You Noticed…

If you’re looking for an effective solution to help get your blog noticed then the Contextual Partnership Plugin for WordPress bloggers could be well worth consideration. Perhaps the most attractive aspect is that there is no cost involved.

According to the developers the plugin is designed to;

Drive more targeted visitors to your blog (or blogs) by strategically linking your blog to and from other bloggers participating in the network. The exact method used to achieve this remains confidential but apparently it’s not a basic reciprocal link exchange – nor the more common 3 way linking arrangement often seen between bloggers. More →