Blogger.com Review

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Product Name: Blogger
Website: www.blogger.com
Price: Free
Overall Grade: C
Recommendation: It's a decent product for personal blogging, but you shouldn't use it for a business blog.

Overview:
Blogger is a fairly popular blogging tool. It was purchased by Google in 2003, although it doesn't look or feel anything like other Google products. Blogger was one of the first products to make blogging accessible to the masses, which earned it significant market-share and mind-share, but it has since been surpassed by several competitors (especially Wordpress) when it comes to business blogging.

The Good:
Setting up a new blog on Blogger is really fast, especially because you can use your existing Google account. They basically just ask you to name your blog and pick a template, and then you're ready to start writing posts.

I was also very impressed with the design tools they have. Of the blogging tools I've used, Blogger has among the best templates to choose from, and they definitely have the best system for customizing the design without actually writing any code.

The Bad:
If you plan on blogging for a business, it's important that you control the brand. Unfortunately Blogger puts an ugly toolbar across the top of all their blogs with a Blogger logo on it. So before anyone sees your brand, they see the Blogger brand which looks really unprofessional. Some people have figured out ways to hide this bar, but that's hacky at best and probably violates the terms of use. As far as I'm concerned, this is a dealbreaker.

Also, the user experience is really underwhelming. I used blogger several years ago and it seemed outdated even then. Not much has changed. I can't figure out how a company like Google lets one of their most visible products stagnate, but that's exactly what's happened. I wish I could be more specific and concrete with this criticism, but you really have to use the product to understand what I mean.

Conclusion
If you just had a baby and you want to post updates for your family to read, maybe you should use Blogger. If you're backpacking across Europe and you want a way to share your experiences with your friends, Blogger would work for that. However, if you're writing a business blog (or even a serious personal blog), I don't think Blogger should even be a consideration. It's not very professional, you don't have enough control, and it doesn't offer anything unique.

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