@Fern: Yes, many small business, educational establishments and the like use Blogger. Also Twitter (http://blog.twitter.com/) and New Scientist blogs (from the top of my head). There are probably some others, but without going through the source code for huge lists of corporate blogs it would be difficult to say. Certainly though, there are far fewer corporate blogs which use Blogger than WordPress.

Also, I didn’t know about the phasing out of the FTP system. I can’t say I blame Google for wanting to get rid of that, must be terribly troublesome for them to maintain and support, but it leaves yet another hole in this book.

On that note, no worries about the bias, I tried to keep my own out but clearly wasn’t 100% perfect. That being said, one thing the book did show me is that there are cases and people that might do better under Blogger than WordPress. I am not one of those cases, but I can respect those who are.

Still, I think that both systems have a lot to learn from the other…

Fern:

I really struggled to think of anyone that uses Blogger as a corporate blog. Yes, you can host it on your own domain but companies seem to prefer something self-hosted. Google uses it because it’s their product (eating their own food) but I can not think of anyone, large or small, who does.

I’d love for some examples though.

UBE:

Glad you liked it. I tried to be honest with it. Perhaps I’ll do more reviews in the future.

I was glad to read your view of this book from the perspective of a non-Blogger user (or at least not a regular user).

I’m also reading through Blogger: Beyond the Basics and will be writing my review in the next week or so. As an avid Blogger user, I have to admit that this book seems written from the perspective of a web designer who has dabbled in Blogger rather than been immersed in it.

The one great criticism I have so far reflects the FTP issue because Blogger is phasing out all support for this in favor of custom domains (hosted on Blogger but accessible via a TLD).

For me this is a major flaw. My own blog offers help and advice for those using Blogger, and far more current users favor the custom domain than FTP. Also, in publishing by FTP Blogger users must use the classic templates which use completely different code to the newer XML templates. This should be pointed out clearly, from the beginning, lest readers be confused about how to access and edit elements of the template code.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but is there no mention of using third party templates? I haven’t yet finished reading the book, but again this is of major interest to Blogger users and the subject is deserving of a chapter in itself.

Thank you for producing an unbiased review which will surely be helpful to Blogger users. Reading between the lines, I can only assume Blogger is not the system of choice for you, though I am glad to see you have warmed to the simplicity and functionality of our template system :) In contrast to yourself, I have dabbled in WordPress but settled with Blogger, so please forgive my own bias in this regard!

I’m glad you liked the review. It sounds like you’ve got a good target there for the book so, if that’s the case, definitely consider it for them.

As far as Blogger goes as a platform, I didn’t talk about it in the review (wrong time, wrong place) but I was amazed at how flexible the template engine could be. It was likely as powerful, if not more powerful, than what WordPress.org users have now.

Granted, with Blogger you have issues of flexibility that you don’t have woth WP, but for making the site look as you want it, it’s pretty easy and pretty complete and I like the one-page HTML system versus the WP multiple-file template. Even though the latter is much more flexible, I have to say I admire the simplicity.

Still, I’d definitely look at books dedicated to Adsense, RSS and other topics mentioned in this one. I even found a whole book on Google Analytics.

I just think they’d give a more complete picture…

Thank you again for your thoughts!

I may just pick up the book and skim through it (not to mention hand it off to some folks thinking about dabbling into the blogosphere via Blogger).

As far as platforms go (when users ask) I usually recommend people use Blogger if they don’t want to get involved with the “self hosting drama,” and WordPress.org if they want to host it on their own server (I never recommend WordPress.com as users will have to pay to customize their layout dramatically, which is often a deal breaker for many).