Google Tests New Blogger Layout Design Tool

Google will begin on Thursday a public test of a Blogger layout customization tool that the company says significantly broadens publishers' ability to modify the look of their blogs.

The Blogger Template Designer includes ready-to-use professional designs, pre-built templates that can be further modified, a color-adjustment control to tweak the blog's color palette, stock photos for background use and an advanced interface for publishers who know HTML and CSS.

"The presentation of your content online and how you create that presentation is very important to self-expression. How you look online is your personal brand," said Siobhan Quinn, a Blogger product manager. "With this new tool, we want to empower users to express themselves not only through their words but also through their blog's design."
 
To use the Blogger Template Designer, publishers will have to log into their blogs through Blogger in Draft, which is where Google previews Blogger features that are still in a test phase.

"This is the biggest launch Blogger has had in several years," Quinn said.

Blogger, a pioneer blog publishing service launched in 1999, played a major part in the blogging revolution, but has at times over the years been criticized for being slow in adding features that competitors often incorporate sooner.

Nonetheless, it remains a major player in its market with millions of active bloggers and more than 300 million active monthly readers. In the past two years, active contributors to Blogger blogs have more than doubled, according to Google.

Google Testing TV Search

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Google is testing a new TV search service in conjunction with Dish Network.

According to Jessica Vascellaro of The Wall Street Journal, the new search service will run on set-top boxes and will allow users to search for TV shows and Web content, including YouTube videos.

Dish Network, which is currently the second largest satellite TV provider in the U.S., will allow Google to offer TV searches of a very high quality to its viewers. In return, Google will be able to drive more advertising revenues as subscribers are bound to see its display ads while conducting searches.

The service will make use of some features from Google’s Android Operating System. New set-top boxes will have to be loaded with Google software and Dish Network subscribers will be able to search content and even create their own show line up or playlist using a keyboard.

The service is already being tested by families of Google employees.

Studies have shown that more and more users are interested in viewing online content on their large-screen TV sets. Some companies like Apple, Yahoo! and Microsoft already offer similar services.

One hurdle that Google will have to overcome is that users will need new set-top boxes, and they may not want to spend money on them. Google will have to devise some enticing offers to encourage users to get a new set-top boxes.

Google and China: When Something Means Nothing

Remember all of the human rights high-fivery over Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) threat to leave China if it is forced to continue to censor its results?

"Something should happen soon," CEO Eric Schmidt told reporters yesterday, acknowledging that officials from China and Google executives are in negotiations.

I think Schmidt rocks, but I'm going to have to call his bluff on this one. Under what scenario do you see China agreeing to Google's demands? Under what scenario do you see Google pulling out of the world's most populous nation?

I took a comical stab at what these negotiations must be going like, and I'm quite frankly surprised to hear Schmidt point to a quick resolution.

Right now, China is a small market in terms of revenue. Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) is the runaway market leader, and the $651.6 million in revenue it recorded last year is less than 3% of the $23.7 billion that Google scored on its top line last year. Because Google's market share in China is roughly half of Baidu's slice, leaving China wouldn't affect Big G's results in the near term.

However, this isn't about the near term. The world's leading search engine knows that China's economy is improving at a heady pace. Baidu posted 40% revenue growth for its latest quarter, and even real-world advertising networks AirMedia (Nasdaq: AMCN) and VisionChina (Nasdaq: VISN) posted double-digit top-line gains for 2009. Google has a chance to cash in on China as its citizens accumulate wealth and advertisers spend more to reach them. It's not as if Google can leave and come back in a few years as if nothing had happened.

Google has some leverage here, but it's not much. Just as China may be disgraced globally if Google leaves, it may be a better resolution than to be embarrassed globally if it lets Google get its way. Why should China bow to Google's demands, instead of protecting its homegrown engines Baidu and Sohu.com's (Nasdaq: SOHU) Sogou?

Maybe Schmidt is simply feeling the pressure from the activists who hoisted Google onto their shoulders earlier this year. It has been two months since Google took a stand in China, and nothing has changed. Was it just lip service?

Those four words -- "something should happen soon" -- are timely, yet also sorely open-ended. Google isn't leaving China. China isn't going to let Google have its way.

The only thing that will happen soon -- sadly -- is nothing.