New and improved Blogger mobile apps

Inspiration for a new post can happen at any place and time: on the couch, while shopping, at a game, or in the kitchen. Fortunately, mobile devices enable you to stay connected wherever you are.

With that in mind, Blogger just launched updated apps for both Android and iOS. The updated apps include a visual facelift and other features which make it easier for you to create and share -- wherever your imagination runs wild. Some of the more notable improvements include:


Landscape support for composing posts
Sharing to Google+
Ability to view a scheduled post time
International support in 30+ languages
iPad support


Hope you enjoy these improvements, and keep writing great blog content on the go.

Get Blogger in the Play store to get the latest on your Android phone or the App Store for iOS devices.

Grow your audience with the Google+ followers gadget

Connecting your blog to Google+ is a great way to attract new readers, as well as build lasting relationships with your followers. For example, you can easily share your posts in the Google+ stream, as well as enable blog visitors to recommend your stuff in a single click. Today we're excited to offer another Google+ perk: the followers gadget.

The Google+ followers gadget highlights your total Google+ audience (both its size and some friendly faces), and offers visitors the chance to follow you on Google+. As a result, you can grow your readership across the web, and reach them either in the Google+ stream, or through your blog.

Mention people in your posts with Google+

Blogs are a great way to spark a conversation, and today we’re giving you a new way to grab someone’s attention: Google+ mentions in Blogger. Now you can add a link to a Google+ profile or page when you want to mention someone in a post. If you then share your post from Blogger to Google+, we make it easier to notify your mentions by including them in the sharebox.

To mention someone, just type “+” before their name while you’re using the Blogger post editor.

Bringing Google+ Comments to Blogger

Reading and responding to comments can be one of the most rewarding aspects of blogging. Not only do they help you connect with your readers, they can also inspire later blog entries. The challenge, oftentimes, is following all the conversations around your content—on Google+, for instance, as well as on your website. So we're making things a lot simpler.


You can bring Google+ Comments to your Blogger blog. Once you've enabled the feature through your Blogger Dashboard, you'll enjoy a number of important benefits:

Get a pulse for the posts your readers like most with the +1 counter

As mentioned, Google would bring you new ways to grow your blog and engage with your readers using Google+. Today I'm glad to introduce the +1 counter, which allows you to quickly scan your dashboard to see which posts are most popular on your blog. Each time a reader clicks the +1 button on a post, a +1 gets added to that post's counter and their profile photo and name will appear.

Engage with your readers through threaded commenting

You may have noticed that we’ve rolled out a number of improvements to Blogger recently. The folks over atTechnorati referred to it as a “rampage”. Call it what you like, we’re definitely having fun giving Blogger the makeover it’s long deserved, and we appreciate all the positive feedback we received at the recent BlogWorld expo.

If you follow us on our Buzz blog, you’re aware that we publish surveys from time to time. They are one of several methods that we use to collect your feedback about what we can do to make your blogging experience better. A top request on the wishlist is improving Blogger’s commenting system, so we’re happy to announce that we’ve done just that.

Blogger now supports threaded commenting, which means that it is now much easier to differentiate between whether someone is making a general comment on the thread, or responding to another comment on the thread.

Increased pageviews and time on site

The Slide by SimpleReach recommends related posts from your site on a widget that "slides" in at the bottom of the page. You've seen a similar content recommendation widget on sites like NYTimes.com, and now SimpleReach is allowing anybody to take advantage of this awesome tool for free. 


Benefits

• Increased pageviews and time on site
• Increased sharing on Twitter, Facebook and Google +1 via embedded social buttons
• Access to full analytics in 'Reports' on SimpleReach.com
• Customize The Slide's style and functionality
• Allow readers to opt-out