Google’s photo-sharing site got a fair degree more social this afternoon.  Now, users should find the process of sharing their pictures to be simpler, although Google’s choice of products to feature is perhaps a little on the odd side.

Google Buzz, which still seems to be struggling to catch on with any sort of mainstream audience (or even a sizable niche one), has been given another opportunity to connect with people.  Blogger users will now be able to promote their posts with the new-ish product.

Update: This article is nearly a year old, but pretty much the same thing is happening again (or still). A number of popular music blogs have been removed from Blogger, some are saying without warning. When we covered this before, Blogger Product Manager Rick Klau left us the following comment (as seen in the comments section):

Google-owned Blogger has added a new revenue generation option: direct integration with Amazon Associates to search Amazon’s product catalog and add links to products where Bloggers can earn commissions when their readers buy products they recommend.

According to Technorati’s 2009 State of the Blogosphere report, 70% of bloggers talk about products or brands on their blogs, eMarketer reports. And obviously some of these mentions would be prompted by free sample products, etc.—a practice popular enough to draw the notice of the FTC, which now requires disclosure on such review products.

Google launched AdSense for Feeds all the way back in 2005. Now the company is integrating it right into its Blogger property.

Blogger has extended the comments feature it annoucned last year, which lets users embed comments and the commenting form below blog posts. The feature has been extended to display profile images next to comments that blog visitors write.

Obeying a court order and revealing the identity of a formerly anonymous blogger might not work out so well for Google.  Rosemary Port, who was exposed as the author of the now infamous "Skanks in NYC" blog, has said that she intends to sue the search giant for $15 million.

Blog posts that aren’t less than two days old no longer have to be considered lost for all time.  Google’s made the Custom Search AJAX gadget available to all Blogger users, and as a result, it’s become much easier to call up entries from the past along with other info.

Google has released the Public Location Badge, which allows users to publish geographic information to their blog automatically whenever they go somewhere. The badge is powered by Google Latitude.

If you’re unfamiliar with Google Latitude, it is a feature of Google Maps that when enabled, shows your friends your current location wherever you are if you have given it permission to do so.

Google has updated the Blogger dashboard to simplify setting up email and mobile posting for Blogspot blogs. It now supports SMS, MMS, and email posting. The idea is that you can easily post updates to your blog easily while you are on the go.

Running a blog can be a big nuisance; you’ve got keep up with current events, write posts, and monitor comments on at least a daily basis.  But new Pingdom statistics should lighten the load by helping people make sure their blogs remain accessible.

Google has announced Google Friend Connect can now be integrated with its blogging platform Blogger.

Google says since adding its Following feature on Blogger, it has been used by almost three million blogs, which breaks down to someone following a new blog every second.

Whether a given blogger takes pride in being a weirdo or feels safer as part of a crowd, a new report will help him (or her) sort out exactly where he (or she) stands.  Pingdom staffers took a close look at which platforms are most common among the most popular blogs.

There is no question that blogging can help improve your search engine optimization efforts. Stephan Spencer, Founder & President Netconcepts talked about some of the reasons why in the following video, but he also said he favors some platforms over others for SEO purposes. Namely, he recommends WordPress or b2evolution as opposed to Google-owned Blogger.

Google’s Blogger has addd a feature to the new post editor in Blogger in Draft. Blogger in Draft is a special version of Blogger where they try out new features before they release them to everyone. Kind of like Google Labs. With geotagging, you can add a location to your each of your blog posts, like with time stamps.

AOL has recently decided to go for a more open and social approach, not unlike Yahoo. They’ve opened up their homepage to third party content, and are allowing users to update social network profiles right from there as well. 

According to the 2008 State of the Blogosphere from Technorati, a little more than half the companies in North America do not have a blog.  So that means that just under half do.  Why are they spending their time blogging?