Try Blogger's New Interface

Google promised a new Blogger interface back in March and started a imperfect test in April. "The new design is not only cleaner and more modern, but it also uses Google Web Toolkit, delivering the newest in web technology."

The new interface is now obtainable in Blogger in Draft, but it looks quite different. "Over the last couple of months, we've made important improvements to our new user interface. First and foremost, we've incorporated your feedback and made many fixes based on that feedback. Also, we've rationalized the look and feel of our new design, inspired by Google's newest design evolutions," explains Google. Blogger uses Ajax, so all the pages load a lot faster, including the post editor. Unfortunately, Blogger is still very slow when you carry out a search and try to display posts or comments.

Blogger's new UI is cleaner and it offers added information about your posts: the number of page views. Tabs have been replaced by a upright menu and the list of labels is now a drop-down. The post editor is much better, particularly if you use the default view. Blogger's new editor takes up most of the page and post settings are now incorporated in a sidebar.

There's a lot of white space in the new border, buttons aren't big enough to be legible and Blogger includes too much information that's not very useful: the total number of published comments and the total number of page views. The new interface is a mixed bag: it's modern, clean, faster and more powerful, but there are many belongings that need to be changed before replacing the accessible interface.

You can try the new UI at draft.blogger.com and you also have the alternative to make it the default interface.

YouTube Cosmic Panda

YouTube tests a new border code-named Cosmic Panda. There are many cosmetic changes: videos are centered, player's wheel are now black, video thumbnails are a lot bigger, suggestions are displayed below the video, profile photos are displayed next to the comments, channels and playlists have a totally new layout.

Probably the most attractive thing about the new interface is a Chrome-only feature that lets you play a video in the background while you visit a channel. YouTube is more fluid and I wait for to see a similar feature when you perform a search and when you click "view all comments".

The new border can be enabled and disabled at youtube.com/cosmicpanda.

Quickly insert a YouTube Video to a Playlist

YouTube's embeddable player additional a new feature that lets you quickly update your playlists with new videos. Click the arrow next to the "plus" button and you can add the video to one of your playlists. You can't make new playlists from the player and you can only see the first 10-15 playlists, depending on the player's height. I couldn't discover a way to scroll the list.

Here's a video you're almost certainly anxious to add to your playlists (there's no "remove" button in the player, sorry about that!):

It's surprising that the embeddable player doesn't have like/dislike buttons and you have to go to YouTube's video page for such a easy action. There's also a related menu that lets you copy the video's URL and the embedding code, but YouTube uses the old Flash-only code.

Blogger and Picasa Web Could Be Rebranded

Mashable reports that Blogger and Picasa Web Albums could change their names and become Google Blogs and Google Photos. "Google intends to leave several non-Google name brands and rename them as Google products. The move is part of a better effort to unify its brand for the public launch of Google+."

While Google Photos makes a lot sense, replacing Blogger with Google Blogs is not a great idea. When people say "Google Blogs", they refer to the long list of Google's business blogs. "Google Blogs" is previously used for Google Blog Search, but only on the homepage.

On the other hand, Blogger could be redesigned and use boundary elements from Google+, Blogger's profiles could be replaced by Google Profiles, the commenting system could be revamped and included with Google+.

One of the reasons why Picasa Web Albums didn't get improved too much is that it has always been perceived as Picasa's online extension. It wasn't a separate photo sharing service and many of its features required Picasa. You couldn't upload more than 5 photos, download albums or edit photos without installing Picasa. Google measured changing Picasa Web's name back in 2008.

Google Real time Search, Temporarily engaged

It's not the most accepted Google service, but Google Real time is useful as an alternative to Twitter's search engine. The service is no longer obtainable at the moment, the "Real time" option disappeared from Google's sidebar and google.com/real time returns a 404 error. Google says that this is just temporary. "We've temporarily disabled google.com/real time. We're exploring how to slot in our lately launched Google+ project into this functionality going forward, so stay tuned."

Google+ doesn't offer a search feature for messages yet, but it should be obtainable soon. It's strange to see that Google had to stop a service to add support for a new site.

Search Engine Land also reports that Google's Wonder Wheel feature is no longer obtainable. "[Google's] spokesperson said that the search tool was removed due to the 'initial stage' of the Google site redesign announced [last] week."

It's probable that both Google Real time and Wonder Wheel had to be redesigned, but Google didn't want to delay the launch of the new border until they're ready. When Google Instant was launched, many of the higher features were not obtainable, but some of them were extra after a few weeks.

How Google+ Transformed Picasa Web

Even though it's not obvious, after you facilitate Google+ in your Google account, Picasa Web turns into a completely new app with a dissimilar set of rules. Some of these rules make Google's photo sharing service not viable for many existing users and it's important to know them in advance.

Picasa Web's face recognition feature helped you systematize your photos. The integration between Picasa Web and Google Contacts made it easy to connect your photos with some of your contacts. By the default, the name tags from your public albums were hidden, but you might also hide the name tags from unlisted albums. When you join Google+, all of this changes. Adding a name tag to a photo is no longer a personal action: your contact will get a announcement that you tagged him. He will get access to your photo and to the entire album that includes the photo.

"You'll receive an email letting you know you've been tagged in a photo. By default, name tags by people in your circles are regularly approved. You can view or remove tags at any time on the photos homepage in Google+ as well as the Photos tab on your Google profile," informs Google. Name tags change their visibility too: if you have entrée to an album, you can see all the name tags from that album. You're not the only one who can add tags to your photos: anyone in your wide network at Google+ (friends and friends of friends) can add tags.

While these changes could get better Google's face recognition software and agree to Google to add new social features, transforming Picasa Web's private tagging into Facebook's photo tagging is a radical shift. Sharing an entire album with someone just because you've added a tag is something that might baffle a lot of Picasa Web users who don't comprehend that Picasa Web is now Google+ Photos.

The good news is that the existing name tags remain unchanged and your contacts won't be able to see your albums just because you've tagged them at some point. But that's true only for the name tags added before joining Google+.

Now when you share an album with your contacts, they're permissible to re share it with other people, so you can no longer firmly control the visibility of an album without continually monitoring the access list. Google Docs has a similar rule, but you can change the sharing settings so that "only the owner can change the permissions." Google has an explanation: "to give self-assurance the natural flow of conversation, once you sign up for Google+, all albums can be re shared by people that have way in to the album - those people on the album's 'Shared with' list in Picasa Web Albums."

It's worth pointing out that the new Picasa Web adds some benefits (unlimited free storage for photos up to 2048 x 2048 pixels, easier photo sharing) and that you can wander your photos to a different Google Account, but it's sad to see that Picasa Web is now a Google+ app which no longer works well standalone and that users can no longer use superior features without sharing their photos.

Google Calendar's plan Refresh

After Google Search and Google Maps, it's time for Google Calendar to toggle to a Google+ interface. The new design is a lot cleaner, even if no significant feature was removed. "Quick add" is now obtainable if you click the arrow next to the "Create button" (not very intuitive), "Print" and "Refresh" are now buttons instead of links, the month view below the "Create" button can be distorted, "Save" and "Discard" buttons are only displayed at the top of the page.

"Right now, the changes are just aesthetic and have not affected the way Calendar works. You can choose to turn off the new look by clicking the gear icon and choosing Use the classic look (you can turn it back on by going to the gear icon and choosing Try the new look)," explains Google. Perceptibly, at some point, Google Calendar will put together with Google+ and we'll see even more changes.