Better comments and more for blogspot users

One good thing about Google owned services is they are bound to improve with time and feedback from the users. One big critizims I always had about blogger is the comments form. The comment form in blogger was a good example of how not to encourage comments .Well there were some solutions and hacks to overcome them but if you are not a technical person that could have being a bit overwhelming , but the blogger team have come up with some great new features in blogger in draft which I think you should opt in straight away.

How to opt in for blogger in draft

Go to http://draft.blogger.com/home , and you will find a new looking dash board and you will find a check box saying “Make Blogger in draft my default dashboard” , check that and you are ready to enjoy all the new features in blogger in draft.

Embedded Comment Form

To me the best addition in blogger in draft , now you have the option of having comments just under the post. This will surely lead to an increase in comments in blogspot blogs. Also if you are not getting a huge number of comments its a good idea to removed the word verification option because this is another thing that is sure to scare away would be commenters. So after you opt in for blogger in draft go to settings -> Comments and in the Comments form placement choose the the Embedded below posts option.

Before you jump in and make the changes there are certain things that you need to make sure in your template since there are issues like hard coded colors etc. But I have to admit it looked realy nice in one of my blogspot blogs.

Star Ratings for your posts

Self hosted Wordpress users has to add plug-ins to do this but you can do this easily with blogger in draft. Go to Layout tab and click the edit button in the blog post section. Check the star ratings check box and you are done.

There are some more great features but thats for another post. Before you jump in and start using these option be sure to check the Blogger In Draft blog for the limitation of these options.If you are already using them feel free to comment on the new features.