The seven views are: Classic, Flipcard, Magazine, Mosaic, Sidebar, Snapshot and Timeslide.
Announcing the new Dynamic Views on the Official Google Blog, software engineer Antin Harasymiv said:
Dynamic Views is a unique browsing experience that will inspire your readers to explore your blog in new ways. The interactive layouts make it easier for readers to enjoy and discover your posts, loading 40% faster than traditional templates and bringing older entries to the surface so they seem fresh again.
“Dynamic Views is much more than just new templates,” says Harasymiv. “With just a couple clicks, you’ll get infinite scrolling (say goodbye to the ‘Older posts’ link), images that load as you browse, integrated search, sorting by date, label and author, lightbox-style posts for easy viewing, keyboard shortcuts for quickly flipping through posts, and one-click sharing to Google+ and other social sites on every post.”
Google provided some links to display the new views on real blogs…
- Classic (Gmail): A modern twist on a traditional template, with infinite scrolling and images that load as you go
- Flipcard (M loves M) – Your photos are tiled across the page and flip to reveal the post title
- Magazine (Advanced Style) – A clean, elegant editorial style layout
- Mosaic (Crosby’s Kitchen) – A mosaic mix of different sized images and text
- Sidebar (Blogger Buzz Blog) – An email inbox-like view with a reading page for quick scrolling and browsing
- Snapshot (Canelle et Vanille) – An interactive pinboard of your posts
- Timeslide (The Bleary-Eyed Father) – A horizontal view of your posts by time period
To add a Dynamic View to your blog: Log in to Blogger, click on the Template tab on your dashboard, and select whichever view you want to set as your default. Although this is the way your blog will first appear, visitors can still choose a different view by selecting from the pulldown in the upper left of the screen.
Do you use Blogger for your blog? Is giving your visitors their own control over how they view your blog a good thing? Should WordPress be worried?
Post Revisions:
- 20 December, 2011 @ 5:35 [Current Revision] by Alastair McKenzie
- 1 October, 2011 @ 23:07 by John O'Nolan
- 1 October, 2011 @ 23:07 by John O'Nolan
I’m a WordPress user and these new options certainly look tempting. But I’m not sure I will ever go back to Blogspot. I think they still have a lot of work to do before I’ll go back to that platform. Despite the work I still think of it as a clunky mess. Whereas WordPress is so easy to customize, change layout etc. So many designs out there that are soooo amazing!
…and if you are on Blogger, Google can kill your site at any time for any reason.
There is no way in hell I’m going to rely on any 3rd party to control my site.
7 different views is still a far cry from the almost infinite control you have in a self hosted WordPress installation.
Gary – I’m interested, on that basis, how do you feel about WordPress.com ?
It seems like one could make a comparison to Tumblr as much as WordPress. In terms of dynamic and graphical layout. Is blogger making a “last ditch effort” to win back fans who have jumped ship to both WP and Tumblr? I certainly did years ago and I’ve never regretted that choice. Blogger is a platform, that at least as of my last use, was feeling archaic and largely useless. Why would I go back now? I think these changes will be great for people who have stayed with Blogger all this time but it won’t be enough to get me to return. Also – while the changes are great, they’re still quite vanilla. There’s no excitement from a graphic perspective.
cooool! :O
Is this really an improvement? Sure, if all you want is share your photos with friends and family it is. But with no sidebar, how on Earth are bloggers going to monetize their blogs? I haven’t played much with this new dynamic views but I don’t like them much already.
Blogspot is great for a lot of people. My daughter has hosted a couple of blogs at blogspot.com for a while now, and my daughter-in-law has a blog there, too. If you’re blogging for a living, or if you have complicated needs, using a platform like WordPress or Movable Type probably makes more sense than using Blogspot, but don’t make the mistake of assuming tht your needs are universal.