I have to admit that it has been about a month since I've updated my own personal blog, which I publish using Google's Blogger. Since the last time I checked, Google has added a number of nifty updates to its set of blogging tools, including the ability to add lists of other blogs into your own.

The new Blogger tool is found buried in the page elements listings on the layout pages. Elements are pieces of content places in Blogger that allow you to add, subtract, or adjust the different segments of your blog. Called Blog List, the new feature "improves on [Google's] Link List page element by using blogs' RSS and Atom feeds to show update times, post titles, and snippets."

I decided to give it a whirl and, sure enough, it created a nice visual list of some other blogs I like and added some updates from those blogs to my own site. It's sort of an in-between step bridging simple lists of links and full RSS feeds that dump headlines from other sites into your own.

The tool allows you to link to blogs, Web pages, and feeds from your blog's sidebar, with an optional favicon; sort links alphabetically or by last update time; and import subscriptions from Google Reader (my favorite). Most importantly, Blog List links are visible to search engine crawlers, so your blog's PageRank and reputation flow to those you link to. Very cool.

Google also added the ability to put slideshows into blogs, as well as a subscription link, allowing your readers to easily subscribe to your blog via RSS.

These are some basic changes that go toward making Blogger a more fully realized tool. I still wish I had more control over the size and shape of the elements, though ...