Seeds Of A Social Network: Blogger Adds New “Following” Feature
Blogger has announced a new “following” feature that enables members to list themselves as fans of other members’ blogs。
By following a set of blogs， your username and avatar will not only show up among other followers in a MyBlogLog-like gadget that can be placed in the sidebars of these blogs。 You can also view the latest posts from the blogs you follow in a special feed reader on the Blogger dashboard。
Since Blogger is owned and run by Google， the posts from the blogs you follow on Blogger can also be accessed with Google Reader in a special “Blogs I’m Following” section。
While the new following feature will be useful for staying on top of your favorite content， the main benefit to Blogger will come from introducing a better sense of community， one that can be built out gradually into a more functional social network。 The Blogger team has already announced its intention to implement Google Friend Connect throughout the blog network， so it’s definitely heading further in this direction。
On the one hand， this new feature roll out can be seen as just an attempt to stay competitive with Moveable Type and WordPress， both of which have already developed social features of their own （and the former of which has run into the arms of Google’s social networking nemesis， Facebook）。
But Google also conspicuously lacks a social network with any significant amount of popularity in the United States （Orkut hasn’t made much headway here）。 So perhaps it has decided to pin much of its social networking hopes on Blogger， which could be leveraged to bolster the usage of Google Friend Connect and eventually OpenSocial as well。
If you’re a Blogger user and don’t see the new following feature yet， you may have to wait a few weeks - they are rolling it out gradually。
大体的意思是 google的blogger加入了“following”功能，个人的理解应该是追随者、或者追踪者的意思[as fans of other members’ blogs]，
在facebook上面有明星页面，你可以申请加入成为FANS[粉丝]--google的following和这个有点类似的功能。
[The Blogger team has already announced its intention to implement Google Friend Connect throughout the blog network， so it’s definitely heading further in this direction]
个人的理解是，GOOGLE开始落实Google Friend Connect计划，从blog网络这个开始实施，可以明确得说明这将是未来的发展方向。
Google Friend Connect 很好很强大的！上网搜索下 就知道了。
【On the one hand，】以下的英文 就不翻译了，讲的是这个运用在Moveable Type and WordPress的尝试，google自己的社交网络Orkut【用过，不是很舒服 呵呵】--因为这个社交网络发展速度太慢，而猜测google可能想从bolgger这个方向重新整合社交网络的资源，Google Friend Connect 和 OpenSocial
最后 普通用户 可能的等待几天吧 才会普及following。。
来自：techcrunch。com的消息
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