Google's widely popular free blogging service, Blogger, provides the option to create blog posts via Gmail or any other email service. This option, called Mail2Blogger, enables users who have email capable mobile devices, like the Blackberry or iPhone, to add new blog entries remotely--and not just text posts, but multimedia ones showing photos and videos, along with some basic HTML formatting.
Don't have a Blogger account? No big deal. If you already have Gmail, then register with your user name at the Blogger homepage. Setup is simple.
Setting Up the Mobile Option
Once in, click Settings on your dashboard, then the Email & Mobile tab. Here are the necessary steps to activating the option, then creating the posts:
1. The "email posting address" is the one to which you will send your email post; it follows the form username.secretword@blogger.com, where the user name is your Gmail handle and the secret word is the one you pick for security purposes, so that no one else will be able to post to your blog unless given your authorization.
2. Choose your posting option, either to draft or directly to publish. I'd recommend the former if you're intention is to lay the groundwork for a later post, which you'll revisit from your computer to further edit before publishing. If you're looking to immediately make public your live blogging at an event, go for the latter.
3. Once these steps are completed, click Save Settings, and you're ready to begin blogging via email.
Creating the Post in Email
To field: Make sure to put in the posting address, the one with your user name and secret word. For ease of use, I recommend creating a contact for it.
Title: The subject for the email will be used for the blog's title.
Body: The text entered into the body will become the writing for the post. If HTML is enabled within your email service, then you'll be able to do some formatting. Gmail allows you to choose font size, align the text, create lists and, importantly, add links, among others.
Multimedia: Include photos and videos by adding them as attachments. They will appear in the post between the title and the text entered into the body. If attaching a video, count on more time before it publishes due to processing.
Ending: To avoid having additional text normally appended to your emails also included--like your work signature or the "sent from iPhone" message--add #end at the designated ending point in the body.
Using the Blogger via email option is a handy way, if attending an event or conference, to do live blogging, where you're making updates to your blog in real-time, on location as happenings unfold--all from your mobile phone, without having to lug around your laptop. It's as simple as snapping a photo of of a speaker, attaching it, then writing in the body of your email the nugget of wisdom he or she just dropped from the stage, in turn unveiling it on your blog's stage for the rest of the world to witness.
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