Uh-oh: Google to rebrand Blogger?

Will our beloved Blogger become no more? Probably not, but Recent reports cite that Google may be considering rebranding Blogger to something like Google Blogs or integrating it into Google+. I, for one, am completely against this. Blogger has been around since 1999. It was one of, if not the FIRST blogging website on the web. Tell me what you think in the comments.

UPDATE: Mashable has confirmed that the rebranding is happening.

UPDATE 2: The re-brand has obviously not happened. Google only added tighter integration with Google+.

Next in Tech: The nD game system

The nD. An extremely cheap, open source handheld game system that will be available at the end of 2011 aims to crush the competition in terms of price, portability and much more. The nD is an indie game console that will be priced at about 10 to 20 bucks. It is more powerful than a Nintendo DSi in terms of processor speed at 400MHz. It is much more open than any leading handheld. It runs Linux so anyone can build games for it and adjust the OS as they please. Devs can also brand the device and bundle it with their games loaded on it. This, I think, will be the next popular game console.

New on Blogger: New Dashboard in Draft

Blogger has reviled that Blogger In Draft  now has the new dashboard, editor, and blog reader available to anyone who wants to try it. I am currently on the new dashboard right now and it is beautiful. It is certainly a big step up from the old clunky dash we had to deal with on Blogger. This update to the dashboard is the same update that was revealed to be coming this year by Blogger. This new dash will soon be out of beta and available to all Blogger users in the coming months.

The New Blogger

Since Google purchased Blogger from Pyra Labs in 2003, Blogger has gone through some major changes. But, none compare to Blogger's next big release. Blogger will be getting an extreme makeover. The dashboard will be the most revamped aspect of Blogger. This new dashboard looks like a mix of Tumblr and WordPress in my opinion. All previous features will be kept. Just modernized. Stats, monetization, and the theme editor will - as far as I can see - stay the same. This new design will be available soon hopefully. A video from Google after the break. Skip to 1:44 for a look at the new features!

The End of an Era: Hot Potato

On August 20, Hot Potato the microblogging service announced that it will be shutting down since it has been bought by Facebook. It has been long rumored that Facebook would be acquiring them and now it has happened. Hot Potato was a micro-blogging service based on events and only events. You could really write anything else unlike Twitter. Facebook usually acquires companies like this because of talent within them. When I used Hot Potato in the short time it was around, it did grow on me but it never really integrated itself into my daily life. There was no app my phone so I could post on the go. It was an interesting site but not really one that was commonly used. It was just another failed startup in my opinion. so I guess we could say that it's good that they were acquired by Facebook. But I'll miss being able to say that I was watching Saturday Night Live at one o'clock in the morning. Goodbye Hot Potato, I barely knew ye.

The End of an Era: VOX by SixApart

September 2nd marked the end of an era for VOX. A SixApart hosted blogging platform. I made my first real blog there and kept it going for three years! It was a great service and had over 250 million unique members worldwide but, I guess it wasn't making enough money for SixApart to justify keeping it running. And even though I believe that selling out and killing off VOX was not a good idea, they are a company and companies have to make money. Since I read about the closing, I have migrated my blog to Posterous, TypePad, WordPress.com, and my primary blog so the legacy of VOX and my first blog will still live on :-D. On September 30th, VOX will close completely taking all the posts, pictures, and videos not exported to other sites down with it so if you are the owner of a VOX blog and you want to keep all of your content move now!

UPDATE: SixApart has moved all content from VOX to TypePad servers so, if you've moved your VOX blog to Posterous or Wordpress.com all of your pictures, videos, and such will show up from TypePad servers.

Quicklook: Perch CMS

Perch is a, as the website claims "really little content managment system". Now I have not gotten to try this CMS out for myself because you have to pay for it but, the administration interface looks brilliant alone in demonstration video. For about $55 you can purchase a license for this CMS and manage your content seamlessly. Though, you must have some knowledge of PHP so you can create the index file. But, Perch has thought of everything and will come with themes you can edit and use for the main page of your website. Check out http://grabaperch.com for more info!