Over the years we've learned that some of the best insight into Blogger comes from you guys, the millions of users who use it every day. So we thought it'd be a great idea to open up the floor for feedback, and provide an easy way to let us know what you'd like to see.

With the help of Product Ideas, we've created a forum which allows you to submit and vote on new feature suggestions, gadget recommendations, and even Blogs of Note! The more feedback we get the better, so please take a moment to check it out, and then tell your friends.

We'll be keeping a close eye on all of the responses, so please stay tuned! We'll keep the forum open until Friday, May 14th.

The fine print: All support issues should still be directed to the help group. Off-topic submissions may be removed by the team. And Blogs of Note is for Blogger blogs only ;-)

Our newest graduate from the Blogger in Draft testing ground improves the experience of blogging on the go. In this release, we've updated the Dashboard to simplify setting up email and mobile posting for your blogs.

Enabling mobile posting is a great way to open up your blog to all sorts of instantaneous, real-world updates from wherever you find yourself. Stumble across something awesome that you want to share with the world right away? Snap a perfect picture on your phone that would be great addition to your photo blog? Our new mobile service supports SMS, MMS, and email posting, so there are plenty of options for 'mobilizing' your blog.

To set up SMS or MMS posting, simply click the phone icon next to a specific blog from your dashboard.


We'll then show you a claim code, which you can send to BLOGGR (256447) via SMS (or go@blogger.com via MMS) to associate the blog to your device. (At the moment, SMS posting is only available in the US.)



You can even create a blog directly from your mobile device, by following the instructions outlined here. You will be able to claim it later once you are back at your computer.

So go ahead and take your blog on the go, and if you run across something cool, please tell us about it!

You may have noticed that about a week ago a new tab showed up in Blogger for your blog. The tab is called Monetize, and in case it isn't clear what that means: it's now easier than ever to make money with your blog! (There's also a "Monetize" link from your Dashboard as well.)

The current Monetize tab allows you to apply for an AdSense account (or link your Blogger blog to an existing AdSense account). You can then choose where to place ads on your blog, and once ads start appearing on your blog, review your earnings. We use the AdSense API to pull your live earnings data from your AdSense account, so now it's easy to check how your revenues are doing without leaving the Blogger interface.

Please note that new applications may take a few days to process, and not every site will be approved (for more on the eligibility criteria for an AdSense account, please see here). Details about the monetize tab and the information presented there is available in Blogger's Help section.

Going to be in Austin, Texas for South By Southwest? Blogger is! And we're throwing a party with our friends from Google Reader. Come, drink, and talk blogs.

Party is at Six Lounge (117 W 4th St @ Colorado) on Sunday, March 15th from 10pm - 1am. Bring your SXSW Interactive Badge, or find a Blogger or Google Reader team member at the conference and ask for an invitation. You'll recognize us by our schwag. 

See you there! 

The fact that there are tens of thousands of results for "blogger's block" suggests that more than a few of you have struggled to think of what to say on your blog at one time or another. If that sounds like you, you might want to take a look at Plinky. Plinky is the brainchild of one of the original Blogger team-members, Jason Shellen, and we've enjoyed seeing what people have come up with in the first few weeks of answering Plinky prompts.

What's a Plinky prompt? Glad you asked! Here's their explanation:

Every day we provide a prompt (i.e. a question or challenge) and you answer. We make it simple to add rich media and share your answers on Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

Not only does Plinky provide help with what to post to your Blogger blog, but it also helps your answers look good in the process. Depending on the prompt, answers contain rich media elements like maps, photos, lists and cover art for books, movies and albums. It's easy to tell Plinky that you use Blogger and all your answers posted through Plinky can go right to your blog.

What are you waiting for? Go answer a prompt! (And say hi to Shellen while you're there.)

Over the years we've heard lots of great ideas for promoting your blog, and have been compiling them here as a handy reference. From simply adding links to enabling cool newer features such as Following, we're always happy to update the page when we stumble across something new.

Our latest addition comes from our friends at TypePad, who have put together a great video on How to add your blog feed to your Facebook profile. After trying this ourselves, we've found that integrating your blog feed into your Facebook profile can be a really effective way to keep your friends updated on the latest from your blog.

So if you've been looking for slick new ways to expand your blog's audience, check out the video and give it a shot!

With several Twitter fans on the Blogger team (not to mention a number of Blogger alumni work at Twitter), it seemed only natural that we set up shop on Twitter ourselves. We will be posting status updates, major feature announcements, and pointers to cool uses of Blogger will all show up in our Twitter account. We will do our best to keep an eye on replies to @blogger as well, but our Help Center and Blogger Discussion Group remain the best places for help from fellow users as well as the Blogger support team.

Today’s release features a brand new graduate from the Blogger in Draft testing ground: Import and Export for Blogger blogs.

The import/export feature opens up a whole new range of portability for your blogs, as well as allows for a few new options in the blog creation process. To get you started, we've rounded up a handful of ideas that can be done with importing and exporting:

• Merge two or more blogs into one. Have a few scattered blogs and want to get a fresh start? Now you can combine comments and posts from multiple blogs into a brand new blog.
• Move individual posts from blog to blog. Cross-publish your posts on multiple blogs, or transfer large batches of posts from one blog to another with a single click.
• Back up your blog to your own storage. It's never a bad idea to create backup copies of your own content, and now you can easily export an archival copy of your blog to your hard drive with a simple tool.
  
• Move your blog somewhere else. Our standard Atom XML export format will open up new blogging channels between providers, and let you take your content with you should you decide to move somewhere else. And of course, if you decide to come back to Blogger, importing your export file will get you back up and running in seconds.

We have also added new importing options to the blog creation process:
A couple caveats

• Currently we only support importing Blogger blogs. We don't yet support importing from WordPress, Typepad, LiveJournal or any other blogging platforms.
  
• Before importing a blog for the first time, we recommend that you create a new, throwaway blog to import into so you get a sense for how the process works. Once you’re comfortable, import into your public blog.
• If you have enabled a content warning for your blog, then you will have to remove it before your blog can be exported.

Sometimes we stumble across gadgets that are just too cool to keep to ourselves. And such is the case with the slick iLike gadget, which should be a real treat for all of you Blogger audiophiles out there.

iLike brings music to your blog by letting you embed and share playlists that you make yourself. Using their simple interface, you can organize and arrange your tunes, then seamlessly integrate them into your blog's sidebar.


To get started, head on over to the playlist editor and build up your list of tunes from the iLike database. When you are finished, simply click the orange 'Done!' button at the bottom of the page, and you will be taken to a preview of what your playlist will look like on Blogger.

If everything looks good, click the orange 'Add to Blogger' button to go to Blogger's Import Page Element Page (if not already signed in you will be prompted to do so.) Then choose the blog which you want to have the playlist, and click 'Add Widget.'

The iLike gadget will now show up in your blog's page elements editor for you to arrange as you wish. Pretty cool, eh?

Keep in mind though that playlist editor feature of iLike is still technically in beta, so the usual caveats apply. However, if you are feeling extra entrepreneurial you could help out the iLike dev team by answering their quick survey.