Blogger Beta: We have categories !

The Bewra Kekra informs me that BLOGGER FINALLY HAS CATEGORIES. So I might not shift to my own domain.

From Blogger Buzz:

With the beta you can:

• Categorize your posts with labels
• Control who can read your blog
• Change the appearance and content of your blog with your mouse instead of HTML
  

Take the tour here. Still in beta, so it's available to only a select bunch. (I'm not one of them. Bah). You can also sign in/sign up with your google account. Here. I'm signing up to test it out. Here.

Some Changes (apart from those listed in the tour):
1. The post timing and date has been simplified. Just type it, instead of using a dropdown menu.
2. No link can be added yet to the post title
3. Just two comment options to each post - allow/don't allow comments. Simplified.
4. No option for backlinks yet.
5. You can edit the post after you've published it. No need to go back to the post listing and then editing it. Simple usable changes.
6. Drag and Drop page editing
7. Lots of widgets (they haven't called them widgets, but they're widgets all right) - lists, link lists, pictures, html/javascript.(screencap)
You can actually display external feeds! I've added one for ContentSutra
8. A WYSIWYG page editor. You can change colours of the links, background, the site by clicking on a colour in the grid. (screencap)
9. You can subscribe to RSS feeds for comments to specific posts.

So, lots of changes. What else do I want?
1. A sync with Technorati/ del.icio.us
2. A search script
3. Display latest comments on the side
4. A calendar for navigating the archives

Okay, so I want blogger to be like Wordpress...but thankfully, one can edit the blogger template, unlike the wordpress.com templates.

Update:

• Amit Agarwal has also written about the changes.
• Brett informs me that there's a blogger hack that allows you to add a list of comments on the current page to the sidebar. Not exactly the recent comments to the site, but it's still an option.