Blogger Comments Powered by Google+

I don't know if you've notice, but this blog's comments look different. That's because I've switched to the new Google+ Comments feature for Blogger.

The upgraded commenting system preserves the existing comments, but the future comments require a Google+ account. That means, visitors can no longer post comments anonymously, using an OpenID account or using a Google account that hasn't been upgraded to Google+. When posting a comment, visitors can also share it on Google+. The new commenting system doesn't just show the comments posted on Blogger, it also shows all the Google+ messages that link to the post and their comments.

Just like Disqus, Google+ Comments shows by default the best comments and there's an option to show the most recent comments. It's not clear how Google determines the top comments, but the number of +1s could be one of the signals. You can also restrict the comments to the people from your Google+ circles.

Bloggers will notice some other changes: the comment management feature from Blogger is no longer available and you can only manage comments for each post. That's a significant downside, especially if you receive a lot of comments. When one of your posts receive new comments, you'll see a notification in the Google bar and you'll get an email notification. I haven't found a way to disable these notifications, not even from the Google+ settings page.

How to enable Google+ Comments if you have a Blogger blog? "Google+ Comments is available for Blogger users who have created a Google+ profile and connected it with their blog. If you haven't upgraded your Blogger profile to a Google+ profile and would like to, you can start the process by clicking the Google+ tab on the Blogger dashboard. Once your blogs are linked to a Google+ profile, a new 'Use Google+ Comments' setting will be displayed on the Google+ tab of your blog," explains Google. If your blog has a heavily modified template, you may need to reset widgets or use the code from this page.

There are additional limitations: Google+ Comments is not available for private blogs and for blogs with adult content. This means that the old commenting system will continue to be available as long as Blogger supports these kinds of blogs. You can always disable Google+ Comments and go back to the legacy Blogger commenting system.

It's important to point out that Google+ Comments are embedded as an iframe (the URL starts with https://plusone.google.com/_/widget/render/comments) and the comments are no longer included inside the Blogger page. Google manages to index content from iframes, but the change could affect your Google rankings.

Another interesting thing: it's the first time when the official Google Blog has comments.

Some early thoughts:

* Blogger is now more relevant, it's less likely that it will be discontinued in the next few years

* Blogger finally has a modern commenting system

* Google+ Comments will be available for other blogging platforms

* "sign in with Google+" will make Google+ even more popular as an identity service.

Google Babel in Gmail

As Droid Life previously reported, Google already tests Babel, an unified messaging service that combines Google Talk, Gmail Chat, Google+ Messenger. There's a Gmail page that mentions "dogfooding Babel in Gmail" and it's supposed to be available only to Google employees.

"Upgrade Chat to Babel! Babel is Google's new messenger with clients for Android, iOS, Chrome, Google+ and Gmail. Access the same conversation list from anywhere!" That's how Google describes the new service.

"Some of the new features:

* A new, conversation-based UI
* Advanced group conversations
* Send pictures
* Improved notifications across devices."

It looks like you can go back to the Gmail Chat interface: "You're about to revert the Babel chat client to the old Gmail chat client. You can always opt in back from the chat roster menu."

Here's a screenshot (it's this image):

{ Thanks, F. }

How Google Quick View Works

I've mentioned in the previous post that Google launched a feature called Quick View that's designed to load search results faster on mobile devices. Right now, the feature only works for Wikipedia results and you'll only see it if you use google.com in English.

It's interesting to see how this feature works, especially when you consider Google's claim that pages load in less than 0.1 seconds. Like a magician, Google uses tricks to make people think that pages load faster than they really do.

All the Wikipedia results with a blue "Quick View" button have special sections in Google's source code that include the first part of the articles. When you tap the "Quick View" result, the article appears to load instantly, but you only see the first paragraphs, which are included in Google's code, just like snippets. Google loads in the background the rest of the article: it's a simplified version of the mobile Wikipedia article from the Google Cache. An example of page that includes the second part of a Wikipedia article: http://websearch-experiments.googleusercontent.com/B/08/d88ede51537960e3_926bb07ecb8a2bc1.htm.

Here's what happens if Google can't load the rest of the article: you get the error message "Error loading the entire article. Try again".

But is Quick View really fast? I've loaded the Wikipedia article about lettuce in the desktop Chrome and changed the user-agent to Galaxy Nexus/Android 4.0.2. Here are the load times obtained from Chrome's developer tools (I've only included the results for the main HTML file, the images are loaded from Wikipedia's site even when you use Quick View).

- Quick View: 120 ms

- Regular Wikipedia article: 522 ms

I've tested many other articles and Quick View pages consistently loaded in 100-130 milliseconds, while the original Wikipedia articles loaded about 4 times slower. It's a significant difference, especially if you use a slow mobile Internet connection with high latency.

Another improvement is that Google's search results pages already include the necessary CSS and JavaScript code for Wikipedia, while Wikipedia loads additional files: one CSS file and 7 JavaScript files.

Here's the total loading time for the page and its resources:

- QuickView: 30 requests, 143 KB transferred, 986ms total loading time

- Wikipedia: 36 requests, 296 KB transferred, 1.68 s total loading time

Google Quick View

Google Search for mobile has a new feature called "Quick View". Right now, it only shows up for Wikipedia results and it allows users to load search results almost instantly.

"Quick view is an experimental project and is currently enabled for pages from Wikipedia when you search in English on Google.com. We are working to expand this to additional websites," explains Google. There's a form for getting updates "about participating in the mobile quick view field trial". Apparently, Quick View loads pages in less than 100 milliseconds.

I've noticed a Quick View link next to Wikipedia results, but nothing happened when I clicked it. Even the search result link for the Wikipedia page was broken. I've checked the source code of the search results page and the code included an excerpt from the Wikipedia article. It's likely that Google hosts a simplified version of the Wikipedia article and that's the reason why it's supposed to load so fast. Here's Google's version of the Wikipedia page for "salmon" (check the source code).

Google also announced the "expandable sitelinks" feature I've mentioned a few days ago. "Now, there's a faster way to get to the Rotten Tomatoes page with just the info you need most -- just look for a new quick link for 'In Theaters' underneath the main Rotten Tomatoes link when you search on your mobile phone. You'll see these expandable sitelinks appear for many sites to help you get to a specific section quickly."

A Bogus DMCA Takedown Request (Part 3)

I've mentioned in the previous two posts that Inspection 12 sent a DMCA notice for one of my posts, Google took it offline and rejected my counter notice.

Now I realized that Google made a mistake: the DMCA complaint was related to web search, not Blogger. Inspection 12 actually requested to "to have this URL and others like it to be excluded from google search results for the name 'Alden Howell'".

My post didn't include that name and a search for 'Alden Howell' didn't return that blog post. The obvious reponse would be that there's nothing to remove from search results. Instead, Google decided to reset the post to "draft" status and tell me to "edit the post to remove the offending content and republish, at which point the post in question will be visible to your readers again."

As I've explained in the previous posts, there's no offending content to remove: my post had nothing to do with Inspection 12 and it didn't include their lyrics. The post only linked to a Greasemonkey script that displayed music lyrics next to the YouTube player. That script obtained lyrics from sites that now license content from Gracenote and some of those sites actually allow third-party software to use the lyrics. Ironically, the script no longer works.

Just in case anyone is wondering, the obsolete post from 2008 is not the main issue, I'm worried that it's too easy to remove web content. Google says that "if it is brought to our attention that you have republished the post without removing the content/link in question, then we will delete your post and count it as a violation on your account. Repeated violations to our Terms of Service may result in further remedial action taken against your Blogger account including deleting your blog and/or terminating your account. DMCA notices concerning content on your blog may also result in action taken against any associated AdSense accounts."

Update: I found this information from the Google Transparency Report. "From time to time, the Search team may receive copyright removal requests for search results that link to other Google products like Blogger or YouTube. In these cases, we forward these requests to the appropriate teams to evaluate the allegedly infringing material."

I've contacted Inspection 12 and they say "that must have been submitted in error. not fully understanding the DMCA notice. our intent wasn't to post on a blog or complaints about a blog. it was to submit a complaint to google about websites that are posting lyrical content that is falsely described as Inspection 12 lyrics in order to sell ringtones." How to fix this?

Here are the other sites affected by a similar requests (all of them are lyrics sites). 18 of the 20 pages have been removed by Google from search results.

Update: happy end.

A Bogus DMCA Takedown Request (Part 2)

In a previous post I wrote about a strange DMCA complaint. Inspection 12 claimed that a post from this blog "is one of nearly 20 song lyrics sites who have attempted to post lyrics for the song titled 'Alden Howell' by the artist Inspection 12. The lyrics posted on this and other sites are not accurate and the artist has not given them permission to post lyrical content."

The post actually linked to a Greasemonkey script that displayed music lyrics next to the YouTube player. In fact, the script doesn't even work right now, probably because the author hasn't updated it since 2009.

I've sent a counter notice to Google and here's the answer I've received:

We have received and reviewed your DMCA counter notice. At this time, Google has decided not to take action based on our policies concerning content removal and reinstatement. We encourage you to review http://www.educause.edu/library/digital-millennium-copyright-act-dmca for more information about the DMCA.

I understand that it's now illegal to link to infringing content, but I don't see why that script infringed Inspection 12's copyright. The script obtained lyrics from sites like lyricwiki.org, songmeanings.net, metrolyrics.com, which license lyrics from Gracenote and LyricFind. Some of these sites have APIs, so Greasemonkey scripts could use their lyrics. Since 2008, when I wrote that post, many lyrics sites started to license content, just like Google's YouTube did.

That script is no longer functional, so my blog post is obsolete, like many other posts from this site. A non-working script can't infringe Inspection 12's copyright (unless the band started to write JavaScript code).

Another issue is that all the claims from the DMCA notice are inaccurate and show that Inspection 12's representatives didn't even visit my blog.

Does this mean I now have to delete all the posts about lyrics sites and plug-ins? Am I allowed to link to lyrics sites? Is it OK to send bogus DMCA notices to Google and remove any page that links to lyrics sites and plug-ins?

Update: Part 3 and Part 4.

Try Google's Experimental App Launcher Button

Google tests an interface that removes the black navigation bar and replaces it with a button similar to the Chrome app launcher. Click the button and you can visit popular services like Google+, Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail and Google Drive. There's a redundant link for Gmail and an "Apps" label, but only on the Google homepage.

This experimental interface removes the Google+ share and notification buttons, but this could be a temporary issue. You'll only see the new UI if you visit Google's search properties, so the regular navigation bar will show up when you use Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps.

Please note that the experiment is only available at google.com and only for the English interface. A quick way to switch to the English/US interface is to visit google.com/ncr.

Here's how you can try this UI if you use Chrome, Firefox or Opera:

 * Chrome:
- install "Edit This Cookie" extension
- open www.google.com in a new tab
- click the "Edit This Cookie" button from the Chrome bar
- find the "NID" item and select it
- replace the "value" text with the NID cookie value (see below) and click "Submit cookie changes"
- refresh Google's homepage

 * Firefox:
- install Cookies Manager+ and restart the browser
- open www.google.com in a new tab
- click the Firefox menu, select Web Developer < Cookies Manager+ - find the "NID" value for google.com, select it and click "Edit" - replace the content with the NID cookie value (see below), then click "Save" and "Close"
- refresh Google's homepage

 * Opera:
- open www.google.com in a new tab
- right-click the page and select "Edit site preferences"
- go to the Cookies tab
- find the cookie value that starts with "NID", select it and click "Edit"
- replace the "value" text with the NID cookie value, then click "Save" and "OK"
- refresh Google's homepage

NID cookie value:

67=oHEfS8MGXaWm_Flrt5IMfM-xodA4Uy-dfrbaA1_i8okZ0-z1ZhQ_BDXEkOnGuSjJcjbg-DfbCzVYfdUpyrCISVHBBLBgOcvfo1gmVcwh4W8Kb3Jbk87UCA2fVS8PwdldQgBtCm1Ejh0yseXcT0uqwVmGEertRm6d5BvDDnvxAkfUgg2bnWAK-GNjNbNxpa1lGA

To go back to the regular Google interface, use the same instructions, but only delete the NID cookie value.

{ via Tecno-Net }