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A couple of months ago I asked readers to share which blog tools they use the most in some of the following areas. The suggestions were a nice start but I’d like to see the list expand as I’m certain there are more blog tools and services out there.
Please note that I’ve decided not to add ‘hosting packages’ to this list and am attempting to keep it to products that directly help bloggers blogs improve rather than more general organizational/business products. Lastly I’m not including actual blogging platforms – if you’re interested in these and how to choose between them you might like my Choosing a Blog Platform post.
Here’s the list of suggestions so far – what would you add to it?
Statistics Packages and Metrics Tools
• Sitemeter
• Google Analytics
• My Blog Log
• WebAnalyse
• Performancing Metrics
• AWStats
• Mint
• Extreme
• Webalizer
• Stat Counter
• Measure Map
• Slim Stat
Blog Editor Tools
• Ecto for Mac and Windows
• Qumana
• BlogJet
• Zoundry
• w.bloggar
• Blog Desk
• Post2Blog
• Performancing for Firefox
• Mars Edit
News Aggregators and News Sourcing Tools
• Bloglines
• FeedDemon
• Technorati
• Google Reader
• Website Watcher
• BlogPulse
• Blogarithm
• Topix
• Blog Bridge
• Grazr
• Rojo
• Memeorandum
• NewsGator Online
• Net News Wire
Email Subscription Tools and Newsletter Services
• FeedBlitz
• Zookoda
• Aweber
• Yutter
• RssFwd
• Feedburner’s Email Subscription Service
Blog Poll Tools
• Blog Polls.com
• Vizu
• Free Blog Poll
• Blog Poll
• Blog Flux Polls
• WP Polls
Other Blog Tools
• Pingoat – pinging service
• Pingomatic – another pinging service
• AudioBlogger – audio post to your blog via phone
• BlogRolling – a service to manage your blog roll
• Creative Commons – copyright protections service
• Feedburner – RSS tool that adds a variety of features to your blog’s RSS feed
• Picasa – find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC
• Flickr – Store and share your images – good way of hosting images if you don’t have a stand alone blog on your own domain.
• Flock – A browser that enables sharing and blogging from within it
• Copyscape – allows you to track down other sites that are stealing your content
• TalkDigger – ‘find, follow and join conversations evolving on the Internet.’
• Blog Flux – Stats, Pinging and Directory
• Backpack It – A place to organise your to do lists, notes, files, reminders and more – all online
• Basecamp – Like Backpack it (same people behind it) but great for collaboration on projects.
• Ice Rocket – Blog Search
• coComment – Keep track of the comments you leave on different blogs in a central place
• co.mments – Similar name to coComment but not to be confused with it – a way of bookmarking and following comment threads via RSS
• Gabbly – Add live chat to our blog posts (like real time comments combined with IRC)
• Del.icio.us – Social Bookmarking site – good for sourcing stories but also great if you get linked to on it to get traffic
• Digg – Another major Social Bookmarking site
• Only Wire – a bookmarklet that submits posts to multiple social bookmarking sites at once
• Odeo – a tool for recording and sharing audio/podcasting
• TagCloud – produces Tag Clouds for your blog from RSS feeds
• Indie Karma – a micropayment system for bloggers
• Tiny URL – Turns long URLs into tiny manageable ones
• Swicki – a new type of search engine that harnesses the power of a web community – sort of like a search engine and wiki combined
Filmloop – photo sharing
• Stock.xchng – Free Stock Photos
• Favicon Maker – allows you to make a favicon from a photo
• YouTube – a tool for putting video on your blog
• blip.tv – another video uploading tool
Do you know of other great blog tools? Feel free to share them in comments below.
About Darren Rowse
My name is Darren Rowse and I’m a full time Blogger making a living from blogs like 
How can you leave out feedburner?
I concur, feedburner & feeddaemon! Where’s the RSS love Dazza!
I’ve been using Webalizer for years. It’s a free stats package that does all kinds of neat stuff.
http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/
Hmm…what about statcounter.com and Google Groups (a blog hack, but it works for email subscriptions) and using blog searching tools ranging from technorati to Google to Yahoo, etc.
I think also, for designing logos for sites (for us froogle bloggers) Picasa and MyImager.com are what I use for my sites.
This is really a very good post.. even if its a “advance post” ;-). But it would be really nice if we can just write some pros and cons of the tools we are using. For example I am using BlogJet, its a nice tool but have a some problem with getting the text format right.
Holy freeholeys… Where do I start?
Thanks for this list!
Cheers,
JP
For stats Measure Map – superb, then there is blogbridge and grazr
I use else Feedburner and flickr for images.
I use Flock’s built in blog editor as my blog editor and Flicker for images. I have tried other blog editor but the formating was always wrong. So far, Flock is pretty good.
About to place Copyscape on mine as well….
I would add the Blog Editor BlogDesk – how wouldn’t I, I’m the author :-)
I used Google Reader but now I switched to Rojo, it’s a lot better. There are many feed aggregators, I’ve recently read a post comparing them.
Keep up the good work, I like problogger.
Darren,
You might want to add Newsgator Online and Talkdigger to this list.
Amit.
Hmmmm..I would say bout’ Qumana, it is an easy, powerful blogging editor to post to one or more blogs.
Qumana combines a powerfully simple interface, as easy to use as email, with features that make your posts look better, get more traffic, and make you money. Features such as easy image insertion, simple Technorati tagging, and advertising insertion.
I use Google Analytics, Awstat, Bloglines, etc.
What about …
Blog Flux (stats and pinging)
StatCounter
FeedBurner
Oh my ,the web is too small.Or have i been allready everywhere,because i know them all.Liked to know something new!Is there?
http://www.statcounter.com.
It’s not a blog tool, per se, but I’ve been using backpack to help keep my thoughts organized in between work and home.
http://www.backpackit.com
Find out who’s linking to you at IceRocket.com
Excuse my ignorance, but is there any point to using a blog editor other than for people who don’t know the simplest HTML tags?
I’ve been editing in MSWord for the spell checking functionality, then a copy-paste into my blog. It seems pretty simple to me.
Am I missing something?
Sincerely,
John
We could also add Del.icio.us, Digg and Google Blog Search.
Everytime I complete a blog I use http://www.onlywire.com to submit it to all the popular social bookmarking/search engines.
Found more one click pinging tools (besides Pingoat which is the best).
CoComments was exactly what I needed, thanks Darren.
Ironically, it’s not letting me add this comment…
Vincenze.
might want to list some directories and rss submit softwares :)
I go to memeorandum for all my news, could that be counted as a “News Sourcing Tool”?
Hi John,
Your ignorance is excused (at least, by me). :)
It’s not about someone needing to learn the “simplest HTML tags” – it’s about management of time. Some people do like to use a desktop blog editor for efficiency and productivity.
If you have a number of blogs, you’ll need to log in to each one individually to publish your entry which can take a while. Even when using Firefox and tabs…
Using a blog editor puts all of your blogs at your finger tips with just a few clicks and you don’t even need to open your browser if you don’t want to.
Certainly not everyone needs a desktop blog editor, but I believe avid bloggers and those with many weblogs to manage can find one beneficial.
~ Teli
Thanx
Thanks Teli … that makes sense.
man that is an excellent line up of resources, thanks I will bookmark that. Another editor you might want to think about though is post2blog
Oh, and Performancing for firefox is another good blog editor
how about performancing for firefox, flickr, tag editor extensions, odeo.com and slashdot?
What about Tag Cloud?
http://www.indiekarma.com is a tool that allows end users an easy way to support blog content by paying a penny each time they visit. It’s sort of a voluntary financial support support system for independent web content. It’s just launched.
Full disclosure – I work on the application. Looks like this is the appropriate place to mention the application though..
I’m a big fan of SlimStat. It’s Shaun Inman’s ShortStat taken and somewhat evolved. A free, “slimmed-down” version of Mint, if you will.
Since so many blog URLs tend to be LOOOOOOOOOOONG, especially when the URL incorporates the full title of the post, it is very handy to let people know about the TinyURL.com service which can transform long URLs into tiny ones. I have many people I email with who are technologically not very savvy (my mother, for one!), and they don’t know what to do with long URLs that get broken in the email. TinyURL.com takes care of that!
I have a post about it here: About TinyURL.
The URL for the post would be like this:
http://latin.bestmoodle.net/index.php/links/2006/04/19/tinyurl_com
Here’s the TINY version:
http://tinyurl.com/ztsf8
Wow. I’m not sure how I overlooked this post. (Apparently I need to be using more efficient tools, eh?) Thanks for compiling such a comprehensive list of tools…Maybe it will help me maximize the efficiency of my new blog since it already gets more traffic than any I’ve ever put together and I can see how time-consuming this could get if not managed well.
News Aggregators: NetNewsWire
Blog Editors: MarsEdit
ActiveWords and MindManager, How?
Blogging Tools & Process – RobiNZ Blog
Blog Host: Hosting365.com/blog – FREE blog hosting at your own domain name, 100mb space and WordPress install (you have to pay for domain name though, unless you already own one)
rssfwd.com does a good rss email subscription service. It’s sort of simplistic though; as publisher you don’t have any control over the service, and the only subscriber info you get is the number of subscribers you have (you can’t see their email addresses, for instance)
But it captures rss posts quite nicely, and also quite timely – the site says it polls your rss feed every couple of hours. There’s a small footer at the bottom of the emails, but that’s just to hawk the rssfwd service.
Probably more suited for publishers who publish less than two or three posts a day.
I’d add Swicki to the list.
Darren,
This doesn’t fall under any of the categories, but check out this amazing free stock photo site.
Cheers,
JP
To Email Subscription and Newsletter Services
I’d add FeedBurner Email Subscription Service.
I have two tools at my site. The Chicklet Creator (feed button creator) and social bookmark link creator.
Under “Email Subscription and Newsletter Services” you should add Blog Alert. Blog Alert sends you daily email notifications when there are new posts to any blog or RSS feed, and you can add the functionality to your own blog so people can sign up for notifications of new posts.
http://www.shootthebreeze.net/blogalert/index.php
Hi Darren,
Why not consider adding to the blog tools a wordpress
installer and manager such as WP ManagerDX?
Have you checked it out yet?
If you or anyone have any questions about this tool let me know.
Go check it out now:
http://WPManagerDX.com
Thanks
Edna
Hey nice!
Do you really need all these tools? I’ll add them to the ultimate home for your blogs http://blogbugs.org
Okay, I’ve recently found this tool from the folks at the bleme shack http://www.blemeshack.com. I am hooked … they have this “Shack This” button they give u for your browser (also have a google toolbar button) lets you select fany text or code from anywhere on the web (im not kidding) & store the code or text super fast!
Site has unique image directory of blog stuff with 1,000s of listings for blog toys, flash, games, glitter, widgets, pictures, etc all stuff you can put on your blog or website that requires code so ive been on their site a lot and frankly amazed!