Logging In To Following, Using The Google "One account" Login

Long ago, Blogger Following (aka Google Friend Connect) was part of a non Google community of social networks.

If you wanted to Follow a blog, you had to login to the Followers gadget, but separately from your login session with Blogger. This let you login to Blogger to maintain your blog, and to Follow other blogs, using any desired Blogger or Google account that you wished.

You do not have to Follow other peoples blogs, using the same Blogger or Google account that you use to maintain your blog - nor do you have to logout from your Blogger account that you are using to publish to your blog, so you can Follow somebody else's blog. This lets you separate blog ownership identity from blog Following and surfing activity.

As part of the separate login policy, Following let you login using any Blogger / Google account - or using any one of several non Google accounts, of an interesting variety.

Long ago, your selections, for logging in to Following, included an intriguing complement of hosts, for your Followers account.

• Google
• Twitter
• Yahoo
• AIM
• Netlog
• OpenID

Adding to the intrigue, you could choose from an interesting, and oddly differing, complement of hosts, for your Followers profile.

• Following (Default)
• Blogger
• Google
• Orkut
• Netlog
• Plaxo
• Twitter

With the coming of the Google "One account" login to Blogger, all of that is simplified. Now, to login to Following, as for Blogger, you get the normal Google "One account" login display.

The login display is carefully labeled, so you know that you are logging in to Following.

Sign in to continue to Google Friend Connect

Other than that label, what you see is the well known "One account" login display.

As with any Blogger / Google login, you can login to a GMail address based Blogger / Google account - or to a non GMail email address based Blogger / Google account. And, if you don't yet have a Blogger or Google account, there is the also familiar link to

Create an account

Clicking on "Create an account", you are given the standard Google "Create your Google Account" wizard.

As with any account creation scenario, I will once, again, remind you that creating a Blogger / Google account creates a responsibility. It is in your best interest to remember and secure the account name and password, and to religiously maintain all backup devices and features, such as backup email account, phone number, and secret question.

As with any Blogger / Google feature, use of the Google "One account" login is subject to your use of a computer with properly configured filters. You need proper filter settings, to permit popup windows, scripts (JavaScript), and third party cookies.

The Google "One account" display, when used for Following, may be subject to the same confusion, as with the Blogger login. Don't use the login account menu, without being aware of possible confusion.

The login process appears to run under "accounts.google.com", presenting cross site relationships with "blogger.com", "blogspot.com", and whatever country code domain, and / or custom domain might affect you, as you view your blog and other blogs.

Interestingly enough, once you are logged in to Following, and you prepare to Follow another blog, you still may get the choice of account hosts.

• Following (Default)
• Blogger
• Google
• Orkut
• Netlog
• Plaxo
• Twitter

The Google "One account" login only replaces the authentication portion of Following. Just click on the "More options" link, instead of the initial "Follow this blog" button, for an intriguing complement of Following options.

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With Google+ Based Comments, Moderation Is By Community

With Blogger based comments, only the blog owner is allowed to report abusive comments published against their blog.

You are free to classify or delete comments posted against your blog - but comments posted against somebody else's blog are their business, and their opinion.

With Google+ based comments, moderation is a community exercise. Anybody, seeing an abusive Google+ hosted comment or post, is able to "Block" and / or "Report abuse".

You, the blog owner, have no special responsibilities or rights, with regard to comments posted by someone else, against your blog.

Comment moderation is a community responsibility, with Google+ posts and comments, and with Google+ based comments against Blogger blogs.

• You cannot, unilaterally, declare a comment to be abusive.
• You have no need to spend your time reading comments, and deciding if they are abusive.

Any Google+ member, seeing an offensive post, can mark it.

Everybody has the ability to mark any Google+ post - or Google+ based Blogger comment - as abusive. You can do this, against your blog, as well as against someone else's blog.

You, being a blog owner, have no unilateral decisions to make, to delete or to mark any Google+ post or Google+ based Blogger comment - even if the Google+ post mentions your blog (Google+ based Blogger comment is against your blog).

You can't view every comment or post - even if your blog is mentioned.

If a Google+ post or Google+ based Blogger comment is not published to the public, by someone who has not circled you, you won't even see that post or comment. With this lack of visibility, community based moderation is the only possible solution.

You have no need to read each comment, one by one, and decide if it is abusive. This eliminates the need for individual moderation - and allows all comments to be published, immediately. As a secondary effect, this encourages more comments.

You can spend more time working on your log - and let your readers moderate.

Since you don't need to spend your time reading comments, you have more time to work on your blog. This gives your readers better / more content to read, and encourages more search engine traffic. More search engine traffic leads to more readers, and more comments. Eat, sleep, rave, repeat.

Community based abuse classification allows more accurate and prompt feedback, into the Blogger / Google abuse classification processes. This may help reduce the volume of spuriously classified blogs, reported in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken

Why was my blog deleted? I don't spam!!

As a secondary effect, Blogger Policy Review may be able to more promptly review the blogs that are reported.