What Blogging Widgets Annoy You, Help You?
So, I blog, but am obviously a novice at it, compared to some of you. That said, I’m looking to you to help me identify what’s lacking. For example, any of you ever try to host your blog through WordPress.com? Did you despise the fact that you had no ability to modify/customize your template? Ever host a picture on Photobucket, only to have it disappear due to censorship? Now you’re maybe getting a sense of what I’m after. Those of you who are on Blogger, remember the hiccups right after they were acquired by Google? Things seem to be much better there, but are they? What annoys with them?
I’m not too familiar with YouTube. But those grainy little videos remind me of old episodes of the Outer Limits. Other than that, I don’t really hear of anything bad.The reason I’m asking is simple. I’d like to find out a way to fill the gaps. And you are my focus group– you and your friends. Please take this time to help me with a little word of mouth marketing by telling me your thoughts. And please do yourself a favor by passing this link over to your friends as well. You can leave comments or you can email me at myoung at mydomain. The areas of most interest are as follows:
- Photo storage: what else do you need besides space?
- Video storage: any interest?
- Music hosting: what’s the fit?
- Any interest in online office tools and collaboration tools?
- What about photo and/or video editing?
- What about data replication and backup of your other sites or your laptops, etc?
- Anything else you can think of?
- How much storage space is reasonable?
Please… it takes less than a minute to tell me your thoughts, needs and wants. Bear in mind, “You have not because you ask not.” I know… I know. I’ve taken that way out of context. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. 
Many thanks!
Technorati Tags: Blogger, PhotoBucket, Flickr, YouTube, Online Storage
I have a major beef with Microsoft, so I am all about office tools that are new!! ALL about that.
It would be wonderful to have photo storage that at least warned if they felt my photos needed censoring so I have a chance to move them before they disappear *cough* photobucket *cough* tinypic…
additionally, centralized services and storage
sounds heavenly. I would LOVE that.
My photos, my blogs, my email, my word processor, photoediting, OFF of my computer and all in one place! YEAH BABY!!
I store my photos both on ImageEvent and Flickr. I like how professional ImageEvent looks and how you can play with the colors for the albums. But I like how user-friendly Flickr is. It’s where I load my pictures when I’m on the run and only have time for one-click loading.
I’ve only vlogged three times, so I don’t use video streaming much. All three times I’ve used Youtube. Bleh. Google takes WAY too long to load and almost always times out (after two hours!). I hate how Youtube is open to the masses. You can’t make your video private if you want to load it to the blog.
I use Photoshop and Image Editor 7 for my photos, so having online editing tools doesn’t really appeal to me. Everything of value on my computer I store on disks… Somewhere. My system is pretty sloppy and not at all convenient. So yeah, I guess I should look into other ways of backing up my data. Personally, that stuff always seemed a bit over my head.
Hope that helps!
stealth: part of this whole Web 2.0 craze is replacing Microsoft Office applications. Unfortunately, things like Google Docs are very slow over the Internet. I think we can offer something, but it will be similar in performance. However, unlike Google Docs, you can have the same applications in your home, work or online– not just online alone.
As for photo censoring, we are looking into it. Everywhere I look, there are references to the legality of the material. However, I don’t see any reason why content must be deleted w/o warning or notification. And I don’t see where we have to actively monitor the content.
Tink: Thanks for the feedback on the photo side. I was not familiar with ImageEvent. I have heard Flickr was very easy to use.
On the video sharing side, that’s fantastic input about private videos. I don’t see why we couldn’t do that. After all, we can make individual pages and other content only available to authorized people.
Thanks again for the fantastic feedback!
well i got my daughter’s photos on smugmug.com and that is about it now. i would indeed like to try out your service – what a great way for you to showcase your box to clients.
I think you already know what I want. I want a product *EXACTLY* like Photobucket but better. I love Photobucket. I love the features, I love what it does for me…
I do NOT love how they censor and delete my shit whenever they feel like it with out notice.
Improvements on Photobucket (besides the deleting thing) like editing features would be awesome. I would love to have an easy editing tool on where my pictures already are.
BTW, hon, have you looked at Photobucket? Bc what I want it THAT but better. LOL You know how much Iove change (haha…NOT)….
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u78/Bananababe704/thth4c05f4ee.jpg
Here is just a link so you can have a look.
Jay: I’m glad you like the idea. And it will be nice that we’re also going to provide free online virtual private servers too.
EE: Gee… I guess you like Photobucket. LOL! There are so many things to address there, whether it’s the uploading, the organization or the easy tags that are generated. They’ve got a nice product for sure.
i’m new and just getting the hang of actually keeping a blog rolling so i’m going to give you some newbie suggestions.
give me some templates that i can use to start my blog but that can be modified as i start to figure out what i want to do. and give me way to modify them. i’m on blogger. they make it possible to add stuff to your blog as long as it is something that they have built or if you are a web developer. i’d like something in between. a tool that helps me design what i want, possibly based upon templates.
and how about a help system that actually helps. the help on blogger is almost useless. don’t give me a faq and a list of prewritten “help” topics. how about a knowledgebase that grows. even better a wikipedia style system. you can start it but allow others to help build it up.
the only things that i really want in the way of an office tool are: spell check, dictionary and thesaurus lookup. give me that and i’d be happy. as for picture editing, i’ll do all that before i upload.
D: Blogger is a nice system. But because everything is crammed into a single template page, it is tough to modify, unless you are good at some form of code or can spot patterns pretty easily.
Wordpress, is very modular in that you can modify the header, footer, sidebar, mainpage, etc. You can modify these sections in the Administrative page or with a 3rd party tool. More importantly, WordPress is extensible with 3rd party plug-ins. This means you can add entirely new functionality without ever touching a line of code. Simply upload the plug-in and then turn it on in the administrative panel.
The wikipedia for tracking help is probably a very good idea. I agree that help on some of these sites really sucks.
Thanks for the feedback.
So I don’t blog but work with a lot of photographers. One tool that may be an additional feature down the road would be in addition to storage a place to sell the photos to clients. I realize this makes matters more difficult because it brings up the problem of publishing as well as dealing with money.
It could be added on as part of premium subcription service farther down the road.
I’m not sure if anything I have to say will be of help to you. I don’t use any online storage for any of my photos…I just keep ‘em on my computer. I did have a Flickr account but I hardly used it, and recently there were a number of cases where images were lifted off of Flickr and used on other blogs/news sites that freaked me out a bit, so I deleted almost all of my pictures from there. I’ve never used like, Photobucket or anything like that because I don’t see the point when I can just use my computer, you know?
Sorry. This probably isn’t what you were hoping to hear.
blueballs: I don’t see that really as an additional problem. It does get into issues of revenue models and competition. There are companies like Walgreens, Walmart, etc who would love for you to print your photos through them. And uploading pics to them is pretty easy. The hard part comes in when you wish to share your photos with online viewers or use the pics in blog posts. This is where the Kodak stuff really breaks. But having persistent storage for online sharing and organization with the ability to have nice ones printed and delivered shouldn’t be difficult at all.
katherine: Don’t worry about it. But your note does touch on something interesting; and that is the idea of being able to tag any photo or video as private or public sharing. And if the item is private, being able to designate who can and cannot see it. Not everyone who is a subscriber should be able to see everything.
Mike,
I did toy with switching a blog from Blogger to WordPress, and hated it. Blogger seems (to me) much more intuitive.
I have noticed that Blogger is hit-or-miss with spotting links to posts that you write. I would like instant notification when there is a link to something I’ve written. I shouldn’t have to go looking for that…and then not find it even when it exists.
Also, a simple site stat counter: why should you have to go to a third party site and then go through the time and energy to download foreign HTML code? What would be so hard about offering a site meter?
Also, as to templates: It shouldn’t be hard to offer one where the background artwork can be something you import. And then, as long as you’re keeping the same elements in your template, why can’t you have full freedom to arrange them the way you want?
Another pain: The trick with merely posting the first paragraph or so of your posts on the front page, with a little “Read More” button at the bottom…Why’s that so stinking difficult? That ought to be a function you can download with a click of a button.
Also, they sure make it a big process to change your icon.