As you may have noticed we now support more files than images. You can now upload to your posts:

• Documents (pdf documents, word documents, powerpoint presentations and excel sheets).
• Music files (mp3).
• Video files (avi, mpeg, wmv, mov).
• Flash files (swf).
• Zip files with any of the other files.

Check our sidebar to see that you can also create a playlist from your previously uploaded mp3 files.
For more information about file uploads please check our Knowledgebase.

We recently launched post tagging. I’ve been keeping an eye on how people are using tags and tag clouds, and I think I can help you get the most out of the new feature. How should you tag your posts?

1. Tag with multiple tags. Assume you’ll be looking for a post and you will not remember which tags it has. If you tag with most characteristics of the post, it’ll be easier to find in the future. Example: Imagine you had a holiday with your friends in Tignes. Go crazy on the tags: tignes, ski, snowboard, snow, ross, rachel, chandler, phoebe, holiday.
2. Use short tag names. You don’t need to include several concepts on one tag. Spread them out. Instead of “ski holiday on tignes”, use “ski, holiday, tignes”. In the near future we’ll allow you to combine tags when searching for posts.
3. Use tags common to other blog authors on the internet. If you are responding to someone’s post or writing about something that’s spreading through the net, tag with the same tags. Look at the original post for the tags, or follow what’s being talked about in technorati.
4. Every so often — say, every few months — take a look at your tags page (only when you are logged in). Merge tags that are similar, by renaming the duplicate tag to the new name. Imagine you have “holiday” and “holidays”. Rename “holiday” to “holidays”.

Happy Blogging!

If you want to do a post with a video from YouTube like this excellent one,

just follow the instructions in our Knowledgebase.

We just launched Sticky Posts! What are those? No, not those yellow reminders you have all over your screen and desk

A sticky post is one that will always appear on the top of the blog main page regardless of the date. Many people use them for a more verbose description of the blog, welcome messages or comment posting rules.

To do a sticky post just check the box in the new post page, like this:

Please note that you can only have one sticky post per blog. Checking a second post as sticky removes the stickyness from the old one.

As you probably noticed we have replaced the category list with the brand new Tag Cloud on blog sidebars. We just launched the ability to classify your posts into multiple tags or labels. This replaced the old category-based classification mechanism. In the sake of simplicity, we moved existing categories into tags, and removed the interface for category classification.

Tags work like keywords. You can classify a post with as many tags as you like and you can edit them later. We tag posts in a search engine friendly fashion, so that search engines like technorati pickup your posts and assign them to correct tags.

Try it out: Post about a movie, and fill out the tag input with: “movie; drama; scarlet; de palma”. Naturally, if you wish to use those exact tags, you’ll need to go out to your local theater and watch The Black Dahlia if you wish to write something interesting.

This system is great your personal information, allowing you to later retrieve your posts by combining tags. It also allows you to posts by other authors that use the same tags. It’s also great for finding out about people with your tastes, also writing on blog.com — for example other posts about The Black Dahlia). We’ll be working on some new browsing pages that will allow this feature.

If you didn’t enjoy this new tag cloud you can switch to the old tag listing system in the Sidebar section in the editor, just click edit in the tag cloud line and choose list. You also can order these blocks alphabetically or by number of posts.

One last note: in the tag cloud, the bigger the tag name the greater is the number of posts under the tag.

New Friends feature!

You can now write a post for friends only. Just tick the box like the examle.

Your post will appear like this to the readers that are not your friends.

Please note that you need to have a friends network.

We’ve just launched friends.blog.com. Now you can get all of your friends listed on your blog.com profile. Your personal profile also contains links to your photo albums, your blogs, all of the comments you ever made, and recent posts you wrote on blog.com. Friends.blog.com also allows you to choose which photo should appear on your blog sidebar.

We’ll be developing a bunch of new features based on the new personal profile concept, so we’re open to suggestions. Feel free to comment on the post with ideas for new features, or improvements on existing ones.

Did you write about The DaVinci code yet? No? We can help you! We are introducing our new post helpers, with microformats. Login, click New Post when you get to the dashboard. Now, on the New Post button, you’ll find a new drop-down arrow:

Click on the arrow, and select the type of post you wish to create. For The DaVinci code, select Movie (the book is old news). Fill out the search form with “DaVinci Code”, rate the movie, and click next. Tadaa! New post filled out for you. Just write the review and publish.

If you have not seen the movie yet, it’s no excuse for not blogging. We can even help you talk about the weather!

All of your comments - good and bad - gave me yet another uncontrollable itch down the right arm all the way to the very tip of my fingers to give you the latest secrets on how to tame Blog.com’s new trendy sidebar.

By sidebar, don’t read sidekick! The sidebar can be very useful in reflecting your ideas, providing quick and easy links, or boasting the latest book you devoured from cover to cover… You can also display your profile in the sidebar hence showing off your holiday tan you got while basking in the warm Portuguese sun on a sandy Atlantic beach… Aaah holidays!

Back to business: so how can I create a nice, fresh, crisp sidebar in just a few clicks? Where are all the controls hiding? Reader, behold, you’re about to be told the greatest secret since Dan Brown published his world-renowned novel, the Da Vinci Code…

A. Finding the sidebar in your dashboard

A sidebar being a blog element, you will find its management interface in the blog area. Click on the manage link of your blog. This will take you to a new interface with two different parts: the tabs in the upper part of the page and information about your blog in the lower part of the page. Look for the sidebar tab (see second image below) and click on it.

B. Creating a new block in the sidebar

Click on the subtab new to create a new block. This will take you to the following screen. Click on the arrow next to the drop-down box in order to see what type of block you can create.

Before we carry on with the creation process, let’s have a look at the different blocks you can create:

1. Book: this block lets you add a book title, cover, and review to your sidebar. It cleverly links back to Amazon to retrieve book information and cover so all you need to do is provide the book’s title (or parts thereof) or its ISBN (which we all know on the tip of our fingers don’t we?)
2. Blogroll: this is particularly handy if you want your blog to link to other blogs. All you need to do is add the blogs’ links and a title here. They will be displayed as a list in your sidebar. Inherently, a blogroll can be used for any sort of link (webpage, image…)
3. Album list: this here is pretty self-explanatory. It list all your public albums. Bear in mind that you can make an album private/public by editing its properties.
4. Gallery list: same as above but with galleries (a later tutorial will explain the difference between galleries and albums)
5. DVD: this block is very much like the book block, but for DVDs (need I mention that fact?)
6. CD: same story (see you’re getting the hang of it)
7. Profile: this lets you display the profile you’ve associated to the blog you’re currently editing. You can any author’s profile here in addition to the owner’s profile.
8. Advertisements: well yes you can add an extra layer of ads on your blog if you feel like it. These ads are Google ads…
9. Stats: this adds a block with a link to your stats page e.g. http://our.blog.com/stats/
10. HTML text: last but not least, probably the coolest block. It allows you to type any HTML code to display for instance a small flash animation, a small image… You can for instance display the PHP5 icon to show that your blog is written in PHP5. You can also put icons / logos of organizations you belong to (e.g. museums). But beware, never directly display an image hosted on a third-party website unless authorized to do so.

C. An example

Now that we’ve learned our ABCs of the sidebar, let’s have a closer look at one of the blocks: the music CD one. By choosing that type and clicking on create, you’ll be redirected to the following page (see screenshot below). Firsly, you need to type in a title (e.g. My music du jour) and click on edit to save the changes.

In our example, we’ll be looking for Travis, the famous Brit pop group. All you need to do is type in Travis and click on Search. The more concise you are the better the results. Unfortunately, it seems Travis is a very common name as there more than a hundred results.

Look in the results list and when you’ve found what you’re looking for, simply click on Add.

D. The end result

And presto, you’ve just created yourself quite a nifty-looking block. In your blog, it will look like this:

E. Comments?

You know the routine, just drop us your ideas, comments, outcries of anger, and we’ll do our best to reply.

Until then, cheerio!

So you want to touch your posts and customize them, give them that unique style, right? You’ve reached the limits of the online editor or you’re just not comfortable with it? Well hang on because you’re barely a click away from the wonders of HTML…

You can easily edit the HTML code that shapes your posts. Just look below the Excerpt or body text area and you’ll notice a checkbox View Source. This checkbox when ticked/unticked allows you to swap back and forth between two views:

• the WYSIWYG view (what you see is what you get) displays posts as they will appear when published,
• the source view shows you the HTML code (hyper text markup language)and allows you to edit it at your own discretion.

And, presto, that’s pretty much it. All you have to do now is get a good book or website about HTML and dig in. Enjoy!