Blogger is an American online content management system (CMS) which enables multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. Pyra Labs developed it before being acquired by Google in 2003. Google hosts the blogs, which can be accessed through a subdomain of blogspot.com.
Pyra Labs launched Blogger on August 23, 1999. It is credited with popularizing the format as one of the first dedicated blog-publishing tools. Pyra Labs was purchased by Google in February 2003 for an undisclosed amount. Premium features, which Pyra had actually offered for, were made free as a result of the takeover. Evan Williams, a co-founder of Pyra Labs, leaves Google in October 2004.
Blogger underwent a major redesign on May 9, 2004, which included web standards-compliant templates, individual archive pages for posts, comments, and email posting. Blogger's new version, codenamed "Invader," was released in beta alongside the gold update on August 14, 2006. Users were moved to Google servers, and new features such as interface language in French, Italian, German, and Spanish were added.
In December 2006, this new version of Blogger was taken out of beta. By May 2007, Blogger had completely moved over to Google-operated servers. Blogger was ranked 16 on the list of top 50 domains in terms of number of unique visitors in 2007.
On February 24, 2015, Blogger announced that as of late March it will no longer allow its users to post sexually explicit content, unless the nudity offers "substantial public benefit," for example in "artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts."
On February 28, 2015, accounting for severe backlash from long-term bloggers, Blogger reversed its decision on banning sexual content, going back to the previous policy that allowed explicit images and videos if the blog was marked as "adult".
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