Section 44. Creating a Moblog

44. Creating a Moblog

Moblog is an abbreviation of the phrase mobile blogging and represents a type of blogging that you can do with your cellular phoneprovided you have the kind of cellular phone and service that can send an MMS (multimedia messaging system) message or email to the [e-mail] email address. Think about it: How many times have you seen something in the wild, thought "I should blog this," and then realized all you have is your cellular phone and no other Internet access for the foreseeable future? No worriesenter the world of Blogger Mobile!

To get started with Blogger Mobile, you need not do anything with your current Blogger settings. The first few steps in the Blogger Mobile process create a new blog for you, which you can then merge with an existing blog or keep separate, whichever you prefer. To get started, send a blank MMS message or email to [e-mail] from the mobile device that you plan to use for mobile blogging. Shortly thereafter you will receive a message from Blogger Mobile, containing a token you must use to register with the service. After you receive your claim token, go to http://go.blogger.com/ to continue the registration process.

1.	Enter Your Claim Token Enter the claim token you received from [e-mail] in the Claim Token field.
2.	Type the Captcha Seen Here To verify you are a living, breathing human being and not an automated blog-creating bot, enter the value of the captcha in the Verify Your Regis tration field. The captcha you see will be different than the one shown here. Click the Continue button to go to the next page of the process, which requires you to identify yourself if your Blogger login cookie is not currently valid. After you identify yourself, either by logging in or clicking a link to confirm your identify, you will be presented with a list of blogs associated with your login.
3.	Publish to a Separate Blog for Your Mobile Activity When you send the initial message to [e-mail], a new blog is created just for you. You have the option of continuing to use this blog for all your mobile activity. If you want to do so, select the radio button next to the statement No Thanks, Keep Sending Them to [new URL] and click the Continue button. You will see a confirmation screen; click the Finish button to return to your Blogger dashboard. 44. Creating a Moblog
4.	Select an Existing Blog on Which to Publish Your Mobile Posts If you would like to post all moblog entries to your existing blog, select the radio button next to your blog name and click the Continue button. You will see a confirmation screen; click the Finish button to return to your Blogger dashboard.

NOTE

After you complete the Blogger Mobile setup, your Blogger Dashboard will contain a list of associated mobile devices, which you can then modify or remove, if necessary. One modification available to you is to change the blog to which mobile posts are published; if you have multiple blogs, you can switch the target blog for mobile posts at any time.

Steps 5 and 6 require you to have sent an actual image and post from your mobile device. Send an email to [e-mail] with an image attached to it for posting to your blog. The subject of your email becomes your post title and any text sent in the body of the email becomes your post text, placed under the image that you send.

5.

View Your Moblogged Post The HTML used to create a post from your email message is minimal and will not likely cause formatting issues with your blog. However, be sure to review your moblogged post after publishing it from your mobile device; you might decide to add additional text or other elements to it via the Blogger post editor.

6.

Edit Your Post at Any Time A moblogged post, after it's received by Blogger, becomes a post like any other. This means that you can edit it through the Blogger post editor and republish your post after making any changes. In the example shown here, you can see the use of two CSS styles: mobile-image and mobile-post. You can add your own style definitions to your style sheet, which would then be applied to all moblogged posts.

NOTE

Mail-to-Blogger is another type of mobile blogging offered by Blogger, and should be used specifically for text-only posts. The Mail-to-Blogger functionality does not require additional registration for Blogger services; all you need to do is note the address stored in the Email settings for your blog. Any emails sent to that address, either from your mobile device or your actual email client, become posts.