Google+ Comments comes to Blogger

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Watch out Facebook, Google is snapping at your ankles already. The search giant has announced that it is making Google+ comments available on Blogger now. Quite similar to Facebook comments, Google will allow the G+ comments to not only be shared on the blog, but also on the social network.

“Reading and responding to comments can be one of the most rewarding aspects of blogging. Not only do they help you connect with your readers, they can also inspire later blog entries,'" wrote Yonatan Zunger, Principal Engineer at Google. The challenge, Google says, is to be able to follow conversations around your content on both Google+ and your website.

If you have a Blogger website or blog, you can straight away go to your dashboard to enable Google+ Comments on it. Enabling the Comments feature will give you two “important benefits”, writes Zunger – you will be able to view your blog and Google+ comments, all in one place, and you will also be able to help readers comment and connect with their circles. Essentially, your blog’s comments section is about to level up.

Google sinking its fingers deeper into its own services

The Comments feature will allow you to see activity from direct visitors as well as people talking about your content on Google+, all while you’re browsing your blog’s comment threads. “For example,” reads the blog, “if there's a public Google+ discussion about one of your blog entries, those comments and replies will also appear on your Blogger blog.” Thus you’ll be able to engage with more of your blog’s readers, without having to scour multiple pages.

If you thought the Google+ Comments feature had nothing in it for the people who’re actually commenting, think again. Your blog readers will have the option to keep their comments public or restricted to just their circles on Google+. While browsing too, they will have the option to either view all of them or just the top ones made by people in their circles.

Both you and your readers will only see comments that you, as the blog’s owner has the permission to see. “Giving people these kinds of controls not only encourages more meaningful sharing—it can lead to more blog traffic,” explains Zunger.

Enabling these Comments is not default in Blogger, at least not yet. To enable Google+ Comments on your blog, head to your Blogger Dashboard and go to the Google+ tab. Check on “Use Google+ Comments,” and you’re set. Make note that the older comments on your blog will continue to appear in the new widget.

Google+ Comments is indeed an indication that Google is very serious about incorporating its social networking website into pretty much all their services now. Google had earlier enabled Google+ integration with its Android Play Store too. In fact, it is now compulsory to comment using your Google+ account on the Play Store. This serves the dual purpose of making users accountable for the comments they make while cutting down on spammy and fake reviews, as well as make users embrace Google+ faster.

Report by : Nishtha Kanal

Q&A site Quora introduces integrated blogging platform

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Q&A website Quora has launched a new blogging platform, according to the Quora blog. The blogging platform automatically distributes posts to users of the website who follow related topics. The blogging platform also supports the traditional upvoting and downvoting system that is present everywhere else on Quora.

This comes after Quora co-founder Adam D'Angelo's announcement that the company was planning to expand its scope beyond that of being only questions and answers. The main aim of the company, according to D'Angelo, is to share and grow the world's knowledge. According to D'Angelo: “The internet was supposed to allow anyone to set up a web page and share their knowledge with the world. But in practice it’s too difficult and takes too long and almost no one does it. Blogs are easy to start, but unless the author is famous, it takes years to build a following. More than a billion people use the internet yet only a tiny fraction contribute their knowledge to it.”

Quora has kicked off its new blogging platform

Quora users can create as many blogs and posts as they like, from web or mobile. The service includes a rich text editor and allows users to embed images, much like the reply and comment text boxes already present on the website. Authors can tag their posts or entire blogs with any topic from Quora, as long as it is relevant to the content. Those who follow them, the blog, or the tagged topics, may be shown relevant blog posts on their home page feed.

The blogs come as a replacement for the Quora Boards. The boards allowed people to post content that isn't Q&A-based.

Quora is a website that revolves around users asking and answering questions in a wide range of topics. The popularity of the questions and answers are decided through a voting system, much like that of Reddit, which pushes higher-rated questions and answers to the front page and hides the lower rated ones. The website also allows users to embed pictures in posts, allowing easier sharing of ideas.

Report by : Shunal Doke