It lives! For the first time in what seems like ages, Google has decided to give blogger.com a facelift. This is big news. Seriously. As many of you know, I’ve been using blogger.com for both this blog and my original German blog ever since they were started back in 2009 and 2011 respectively, so I have quite some experience with the platform. It’s still a comfortable, easy to use platform, though it does have its limitations, particularly with regards to layouts, integrating image galleries instead of just single images, something that Wordpress easily pulls off. All in all, it’s a good platform though. There’s just one thing.
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| This is how it all started. This was the blogger.com interface until 2011. |
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| My first blog was launched this way. |
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| Following 2011, things looked a lot more modern. Back then, it was actually a major step forward. |
It hasn’t seen a lot of care over the years. The last major redesign took place in 2011, the same year this blog was launched, so almost nine years ago. Ever since then, the platform has always just been there. It occasionally saw new layouts and design templates for blogs added, but apart from that, not much happened in the way of new stuff. On the contrary, over time, it seemed that Google had lost interest in the platform. The iOS app was pulled from the App Store back in February 2016 without explanation, and users were redirected to use Chrome instead. This was a giant middle finger to bloggers since the web interface, while perfectly usable on desktop operating systems or larger tablets, was pretty much unusable on smartphones. Believe me, I tried! It also meant that Google left the field on the app store to a horde of dubious rip-off apps and scam artists. With the shutdown of Google+ in spring of 2018, the integration with blogger.com was removed as well. While this was a logical step, given the years of apparent disinterest that Google had shown in blogger.com, it seemed more and more like they were getting ready to axe the platform entirely, something Google isn’t above doing when products don’t meet their expectations.
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| The Posts overview is definitely the biggest change. The old list view is still available though, don't worry. |
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| The Stats section is a bit of a step backwards in my opinion. All the information is still there, it just requires a lot more scrolling and clicking. |
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| Comment management has also been updated. |
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| The actual editor is one of the few components that hasn't yet been updated. I hope that the product team gets around to that. |
With this background, it was all the more surprising when an invitation to “try the new blogger.com” appeared in the backend back in late 2019. This redesign has been rolling out slowly and on a piece by piece basis. The first big section that I noticed was the new sidebar linking to all the different sections, such as Stats, Posts, etc., with the Stats section, which houses visitor statistics, etc. following soon after. As of me writing this, the editor itself is one of the only sections on the site that remains unchanged, and is also not yet responsive, meaning that blogging on the go is still very difficult if all you have is your iPhone.
Now granted, the team dealing with blogger.com is probably miniscule to the product teams for the likes of YouTube or GSuite, but even with that, this update seems kind of half baked. Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than happy to see this, not least that the platform is not on the chopping block, at least for now. However, the market is evolving, and a lot of the changes Google have introduced are really just about getting the platform to be somewhat up to date. As much as I like the platform, it is still way behind Wordpress in many regards, and the lack of an iOS app is simply inexcusable, especially since the blogger.com Android app apparently just got a major facelift along with the web app. Now granted, getting an app approved by Apple is a bit of a minefield, but Google should have more than enough experience to be able to get it done. At this stage, my only conclusion can therefore be: Get it sorted, Google. I know you can do much better than this!
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