Back in October, Blogger started letting select users choose to display their Google+ profile with their blog, instead of the original boring Blogger profile. That feature has been made available to all Blogger users today, along with another handy new feature.

If you’ve connected Google+ with your Blogger profile, you will now have the option to automatically share each published post to Google+.

While it’s not the most exciting feature, it’s a step towards integrating Google’s social product into its most popular social product on the web before Google+, Blogger. The team promises more features in the coming months to join the two service experiences together.

The prompt will look something like this, allowing you to edit the snippet that gets posted to your Google+ circles:

If you’d like to go back and share all of your older posts, each of them will now have a share option that looks like this:

If you haven’t switched over to using your Google+ profile with Blogger, you can do that here.

If you’re a blogger, then we’re sure you’ve been in a situation where you can’t login to WordPress or Tumblr, or you need to get something to the world fast via Twitter or Facebook.

Instablogg lets you set up a blog post instantly and anonymously in seconds. Even if you’re not a blogger and don’t want to set up your own blog, Instablogg is perfect for quick publishing.

I can’t see the service adding anymore features, as its simplicity is what attracts you, but Instablogg is seeking requests for features here.

Writing a blog post, instantly

You’re shown a familiar WYSIWYG editor as soon as you visit the Instablogg site. You don’t have to sign up or connect any accounts. Simply give your blog post a title and start entering in whatever you like, including pictures, video embeds, and a your text.

Of course, Instablogg doesn’t have a video or hosting service, as this is a no frills and simplistic approach to instant publishing. You can make the post private, or public.

You’re given a unique URL to edit your post, but if you lose it, you’re out of luck because there of course is no sign-up process to claim your post.

Obviously, if you’re a serious blogger and want your own design, themes, and branding, then you should look for another service.

Sharing your post

Once you’ve written and published your post and want to share it with the world, Instablogg’s simple design includes a share to Twitter button, a Facebook Like button, and even a share button that includes services like Digg.

You can view my example post here.

The service has two other interesting features considering its simplicity, built-in commenting powered by Disqus, and a unique QR code for each post.

Services like Tumblr and Posterous are super simple blogging platforms, but again, not having to sign up is a plus. Another option for anonymous blogging is a service called FearlessBlogging, but isn’t as simple as Instablogg.

If you’re just getting started in the world of online publishing, or you need to get your words or a piece of news out to the world immediately, Instablogg is the best anonymous service I’ve seen.

At an event in London late last year, three young journalists discussed how blogging helped to kickstart their careers. As reported at the time by Journalism.co.uk, Guardian technology and media reporter Josh Halliday stated that “The most important thing I did at university, including my degree, was to blog and get online. That’s what got me the job.”

The growing list of student bloggers who have found their way into good ‘pro’ jobs also includes Hannah Waldram, who founded the Bournville Village blog, ended up taking to professional local blogging as the Cardiff ‘beatblogger‘ for The Guardian’s now mothballed Local project before becoming a community coordinator for the same newspaper, and Dave Lee, who founded The Linc newspaper and website in his university town of Lincoln before moving on to a varied career that currently sees him covering technology news for the BBC.

So, is blogging the perfect way for student journalists to get a foot on the ladder? Paul Bradshaw, leader of the MA Journalism course at Birmingham City University and Visiting Professor at City University London in the UK, believes so. “It’s definitely something I’ve been encouraging my students to do for a few years now,” he says.

“I think students entering the marketplace who have never run their own news website are at an increasing disadvantage,” explains Bradshaw. “Pretty much every employer I talk to says that they would ask serious questions about why an applicant was not already doing their journalism on some sort of online platform. There’s also a new opportunity for students to build assets – a URL, a network, a reputation – that employers will be looking for.”

The ability for anyone to set up a blog in minutes, at no cost, makes it a no-brainer that someone wanting to find paid work as a journalist would want to cut their teeth with some form of news blogging.

Taking on local media

Local newspaper sales have fallen, due in part to a decline in classified ads heralded by Web-based platforms such as Gumtree, so students now seem particularly attracted to covering local news. Kellie Maddox studies journalism at Birmingham City University and started Hednesford News in February this year as part of her final year project, with the aim of continuing and developing the site after graduation.

“With the decline in local print news coverage and the increasing boom of online news, it seemed a natural transition to start up a blog to provide focused content on a specific town or area, particularly when Hednesford (the town where I live) is currently undergoing huge regeneration which local residents are clearly interested/concerned about,” she explains.

“During my second year at university, I began to hear more about hyperlocal blogging and started to network with some of the key hyperlocal figures in the Midlands through social media and networking events,” Maddox says. “Having seen the success of blogs close to my home, such as The Lichfield Blog (now Lichfield Live) and seen how responsive people are to it and how vital a service it provides the community, I was keen to find out more and wanted to start a blog of my own. Hyperlocal blogging allows me, as a journalism student, to write and produce content, and publish to an audience quite freely, whenever I want and to provide a service which has currently been absent in my local area.”

Joseph Stashko is a journalism student at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, UK. As a blogger at Blog Preston, he covers local news in the city on a daily basis. He admits that getting into blogging “was just something to do,” but he was spurred into it by the 2010 UK General Election.

“Blog Preston was already up and running without my involvement, but had leant towards more feature-based and local history pieces rather than information or journalism. With the elections coming up I got in touch with the original founder, Ed Walker, and asked him whether I could run a live blog along with a few others to have some dynamic election coverage. It culminated in a live blog that took in audio, video clips, text updates and photos. That was my introduction to local blogging and after that I was asked by Ed to take over running of the blog.”

Self-made work experience

Stashko sees his reporting for Blog Preston as being more than just work experience – he sees it as being potentially better than the opportunities a traditional short stint in a local paper newsroom might offer. “In journalism, work experience is touted as a key part of the process that you need to follow in order to land a job. Local coverage allows you to do arguably more than you’d ever do in a newspaper office because you can be more experimental and have a free choice about what you cover. It also gives you a sense about what people care about on a local level – something that may not be important to you might be a burning community issue, so it teaches you basic news values.”

To date, Stashko is most proud of the coverage Blog Preston gave to a march by the controversial English Defence League. “It was an opportunity to go to town on both live coverage and follow-up content. So on the day I was live tweeting and sending out photos, which helped to build a live picture for people following the coverage. Afterwards there was enough content to make a short video package, an audio slideshow, a local business angle and a general report of the event. Our live coverage ended up being so good that it ended up being followed and used by big local media outlets who weren’t even covering it live.”

Stashko has even had the opportunity to experiment with new ways of reporting in a way that many fast-moving professional newsrooms may not have time for. In particular, geolocation-based reporting has been trialled of late on Blog Preston. Reviews and articles containing background information relevant to locations around Preston are posted to Foursquare, while Stashko recently mapped out the city’s most unhygienic restaurants and takeaways, including it on the site in an embedded Google map.

“There was little journalism involved – all it meant was me digging around in the Food Standards Agency for lots of results – what made it special was rather than just publishing the information I made it easy for the end user by visualising it on a map. Stuff like that also had a strong social element where people were curious to see how their favourite place to go stacked up, or share it with friends,” Stashko explains. “I think a lot of people underestimate the popularity of just being a useful source of information, rather than necessarily having to pursue hardcore journalism all the time.”

Work-life-work balance

One of the problems of maintaining a blog in your spare time is that, no matter how much you enjoy it, the rest of your life can get in the way. Stashkko admits that balancing his studies, a student social life and voluntary blogging is sometimes a challenge.

“It’s always a struggle, sometimes I get in at 11 or 12 and realise I have to write something up otherwise there’ll be nothing on the site the next day, and that’s a pain – but ultimately I enjoy doing it, so for the most part that means it’s never too much of a bother.

“For me my studies will take priority in that I want to end university with a good degree, but the value that I’ve got from Blog Preston is very tangible – it’s led to some paid work, got me known as someone who’s doing things within the hyperlocal space as well as giving me the opportunity to use online tools that’d probably either be frowned upon or looked at as time-consuming in a traditional newsroom.”

Kellie Maddox, blogging single-handedly at Hednesford News, has decided to take a short break from the site while she completes her degree, although she plans to return to it, monetising the project via the Addiply advertising platform, which is aimed at local and niche Web publishers.

Leaving it all behind

Of course, at some point, if all goes well, that experience of running a successful, self-started blog will pay off in the form of good job, but what happens to the blog the students spent so long toiling over? More importantly, what of the audience the blog built up? Are they left stranded?

Luckily, at least in some cases, it seems that local blogs can become something of a legacy for the students who started them once they leave town. Hannah Waldram’s Bournville Village blog is still operating under a new editor, while Dave Lee’s The Linc has gone from humble beginnings in 2007 to become a thriving publication which was shortlisted in the Guardian Student Media Awards in 2009 and recognised by the BBC in 2010 for its General Election coverage.

No longer a novelty?

While blogging certainly helps student journalists hone the skills they learn in lectures, the novelty of ‘a student who blogs’ must have worn off a little for employers now. Is that a problem?

“I think several years ago employers would’ve been bowled over by the fact that you even had a blog (as long as the content was half decent) – now it’s a lot more difficult to separate yourself in a world when lots of journalism students are on twitter, have a blog and use other social media,” Joseph Stashko says.

Paul Bradshaw believes that students can still stand out through using new and innovative reporting techniques. “It’s still easy to stand out from the crowd if you can get great stories or engage a community in powerful ways. Too few students do the latter. The students who are doing data journalism and visualisation are standing out, and also multimedia work.”

“Producing a regular blog allows me to develop my own journalism skills, be creative in terms of the content I produce, such as mapping, audio and video, and to demonstrate my commitment to the cause, my enjoyment and interest and my determination,” says Kellie Maddox.

Maybe that’s it – in the end, it’s all down to showing that you love what you do so much that you’ll fill your spare time with it, and that’s always going to score bonus points from any employer.

In the middle of last week, the science fiction and fantasy author Jay Lake published several pictures of himself on his blog. In them, he succumbs to the will of a hair stylist whose only directive was to “go crazy.” The stylist began by shearing the sides of Lake’s head so all that remained was a fine, gray mohawk. His hair was then dyed green on the sides and blue on top, with red branches weaving their way toward the back. This was not a typical hairstyle for Lake, but rather an attempt to make the best of a dire situation; in a short time the writer would begin losing all his hair as a result of chemotherapy.

If there is a certain level of morbidity to such an action, Lake doesn’t care. He’s committed to exposing, with brutal honesty, the story of his cancer battle, and over the last few years has developed a fervent following from cancer victims and their loved ones. His success derives from his distinct voice and the ability to dive into the sometimes labyrinthine issues that surround cancer and its treatment.

On a post titled “Becoming the invisible man,” he addressed the way that cancer has affected his writing career, describing how people, acting with the best of intentions, avoid asking him to speak and perform at conventions because they don’t want to bother a suffering cancer patient. “It is absolutely true that with cancer and its discontents, there are periods of time when I cannot travel, or, frankly, even leave my house,” he wrote. “But those aren’t all the time by any stretch of the imagination. For my part, I’d much rather be asked and decline or defer an invitation after discussion, than be dropped from consideration in the first place.” He has posted pictures of tattoos meant to “mark” his cancer, has written about his bowel movements and sexual impotence, and has even uploaded YouTube videos from his stays in hospitals. All of this has been done while he maintained a full-time job and a prolific writing career, one that has spawned hundreds of short stories and several novels.

Though Lake has been writing for decades, he didn’t start regularly selling his science fiction and fantasy work to professional outlets until he was in his early 40s. But once he broke into the market he certainly made up for lost time; in those first few years he managed to sell over 100 short stories to magazines and anthologies while also editing Polyphony, the critically acclaimed annual anthology of short fiction. During this period he became a frequent attendee to dozens of speculative fiction conventions every year and was known for wearing outlandish outfits to differentiate himself in the crowd (not an easy feat at a science fiction convention). Many other writers, both amateur and professional, were amazed at his productivity, especially his ability to churn out thousands of words of fiction in just a few hours. Eventually, he segued into writing novels, and in 2007 Tor Books published his first trade novel, called Mainspring (his first novel had been published by a small press in 2005). He continued to write and publish books while also producing a healthy annual dose of short fiction.

The first sign of his impending cancer battle came in 2008. On April 28, the day Mainspring was released in mass market paperback, Lake began losing a massive amount of blood — as much as 25 percent — and was rushed to the ER. Several days after doctors conducted an emergency blood infusion, it was determined that the bleeding had been caused by an ulcerated tumor. At the time, Lake considered himself very lucky; they’d managed to catch the cancer in its first stage and it seemed that it was a simple matter of surgically removing the tumor along with part of his colon. If the tumor hadn’t started bleeding, he reckoned, he would have remained blissfully unaware of its existence until it was too late. But though he still maintains that the treatment was the right one based on the information he and his doctors had, he thinks that by refraining from using chemotherapy they may have failed to eradicate the cancer completely. In April 2009, doctors found a tumor on his lung, but it took about six months to confirm its presence because “evidence was pretty strong against it being a tumor given that I had been Stage 1.” But after the mass nearly doubled in size, it became impossible to ignore. In November that same year, surgeons went in and resected the tumor and the surrounding tissue. This was followed by Lake’s first round of chemotherapy, a treatment that he quickly learned to loathe and fear.

In his blog he recounted the draining effect the treatment had on his life and productivity, how it sapped his will power and muddled the thinking progress. “My brain used to be a finely-honed precision machine,” he wrote earlier this year. “Now it’s finally a moaning imprecise bean.” In a post last December, he recounted the role the treatment played in his breakup with his then-girlfriend. “Another cost of the cancer, to me, was that I was largely checked out mentally, emotionally and socially from the relationship between November of 2009 (the lung surgery) and October of 2010 (recovery from the liver surgery), and most especially from February to August of 2010 (as the chemo side effects grew, peaked, then tapered off). There were eleven months of her emotional and life transitions that I was essentially not present for.”

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After this round of chemo the doctors conducted a routine scan and found what they thought was a tumor on Lake’s liver. They were incorrect in this assessment but didn’t discover this until they went in to surgically remove it. After that, he returned to “something approaching normal” until April of this year, when they again found what looked to be a tumor on his liver. Only this time it was real. In his blood there were high levels of CEA, a protein that spikes when there’s a tumor growth, and a subsequent scan of his metabolic activity confirmed the diagnosis. “Last time I had surgery followed by chemo,” Lake told me in a phone interview. “This time what they want to do is a partial round of chemo, interrupted for surgery, followed by more chemo. And the reason behind why they’re doing a partial round before the surgery is because that way they’ll be able to tell if this tumor is being addressed by the chemo or not. Some tumors are chemo resistant.”

Many patients would be immobilized by these taxing treatments, and while Lake is no exception to the detrimental effects of chemo and surgery, he still manages to stay incredibly productive. “To put it in context, last year when I had six months of chemotherapy, I still managed to write 250,000 words of first drafts,” he said. “What happens is that whenever I have a surgery I lose about a month of writing because of the recovery time for the surgery. That has less to do with the surgery itself — though there’s a week or two of total physical blackout — than the anesthesia bubbling around my brain. It really messes me up.” In many ways, the chemo is even worse, though its effects are much more gradual. For the first four months or so, he said, he’s able to continue writing (though how much he writes decreases with each dose), but after that he experiences “a drop to a room temperature IQ.” Eventually, his fiction writing comes to a halt.

If you happen to click into any of the various comment threads of his blog posts, it quickly becomes apparent that Lake has amassed a devoted following within the cancer community, one that extends far outside his fiction fanbase. “Excellent!,” wrote one commenter on a post-surgery entry revealing the false diagnosis of a liver tumor. “My father just received similar news this past week about his bladder. It’s gone, but it contained nothing cancerous-looking.” Others are not so upbeat. “I don’t know how oncology doctors do it either,” one person commented on a post about Lake’s doctor visit. “Russy’s showed up for his birthday party in hospice, which was the last full day he had on earth. He ate cake with us and played guitar and looked – for one brief moment – like he might cry. It’s a higher calling for sure.”

Lake told me he has a digital footprint of about 10,000 daily readers and estimated that about 25 percent of those are there because of his cancer posts. He has become, in some ways, a kind of online voice for the community, one who can put into words the feelings many of them find so hard to express. “One of the reasons I started to blog about cancer was because I realized right away that it’s something that most people don’t like to talk about,” he said. “And because it’s not something people want to talk about, people who do get into this situation don’t have a lot of access to information. It’s hard to find really honest information about things like the emotional impact or the sexual dysfunctions. The doctors don’t want to talk about it and most patients don’t want to talk about it to each other.” Lake gets far more fan mail for his cancer blogging than he does for his fiction. A person may write to him about how his father died of a similar cancer last year and how it was difficult to understand how his father felt until reading Lake’s post. One cancer sufferer told the writer via email that his posts were used to explain the patient’s experience to family members. “Occasionally they’ll say things like, ‘I have three months to live, and thank you for giving me a voice,’” Lake said. “And I answer every single one of those. I answer all my fan mail anyway, but those are the ones I really give attention to, because I know perfectly well that for anyone who writes me there are at least 10 more who didn’t.”

No one can doubt that Lake is throwing all his energy into fighting his cancer, but at the same time his blog is a rejection of the “cult of optimism” that purveys so much cancer literature. Cancer is a terrible sickness to experience, he said, and his blog goes to great lengths to convey this. “I’m not dissing positive thinking,” he explained. “But honestly, though I’m sure the cult of optimism serves people very well, it tends to mask the fact that this is a desperate and terrible disease and you have every right to feel terrible.”

Ultimately, Lake has mixed feelings about the devoted following from the cancer community. When he set out several years ago to become a professional writer, never did he imagine that his most widely-read work would center around his struggle to survive. “On the one hand I do feel like I’m doing good in the world,” he said. “But on the other hand I’d rather be known as the guy who wrote this book or that book than as a relatively famous cancer patient. I’m proud of it, don’t get me wrong. It’s not as if I wish it weren’t happening. If I have to go through this anyway, I might as well get some significant good out of it.”

This past Friday, Lake embarked on the first of what would be yet another long string of chemo sessions. His blog post marking the occasion, as usual, didn’t bother with any false optimism:

The social and emotional landscape of my life is very different on this trip through chemotherapy, and that practice seems like it belonged to another, happier person who isn’t me any more.

I’m also a lot less frightened this time. Which is not to say I don’t have moments of fear and panic, but the Fear has been almost entirely absent. Mostly I’m pissed off. That, and feeling trepidatious.

The human mind is an amazing thing. That something even this horrific can come to feel routine is… bizarre.

Those who follow the insider-minutia of blogosphere news will recognize this same concept in Gawker Media’s new redesign. In numerous interviews, Gawker founder Nick Denton has highlighted the importance of the large splash post, often telling the anecdote of how Gizmodo had to stop publishing the day of the prototype iPhone scoop so that the article would stay at the top of the page (apparently he hasn’t heard of the WordPress plugin that allows you to keep a post at the top). Like Malkin, he and other Gawker editors will now choose a day’s most attention-worthy post while permitting users to scroll through the leftover junk on the right.

But while Malkin’s approach to this idea is clean and simple, the Gawker design is a mess. A pretty mess, but still a mess.

Let’s start with the sidebar. With Malkin’s blog, the side posts scroll down with the rest of the page. Gawker’s side posts can scroll independently from the rest of the site. This concept works in theory, but over the last few days I’ve found myself reading one post and accidentally moving my cursor slightly and finding myself in a completely different post. The same goes for the arrow keys on your keyboard; if you push up or down, the page scrolls with it, but god forbid you accidentally push the right or left arrow keys, both of which will automatically launch you to a new article. Not to keep comparing Gawker to Malkin, but her side posts also allow her to publish small thumbnail pictures and even subheaders, which are much better than simple headlines at pulling the reader’s eye toward the right of the blog. Gawker has the ability to publish pictures on its sidebar, but doesn’t for the vast majority of its posts.

The Gawker posts themselves aren’t particularly easy to read. You have to scroll past a large picture before even reaching the text of the article. Worst of all, Gawker’s comment section — long cherished for its witty contributions — is not intuitive. For at least a year now Gawker has tried to place emphasis on the best comments, but with the redesign it may not be immediately clear to a new reader that you have to click on “All” to read all of them. In the end, it just simply looks at first glance as if most posts only have one or two comments.

Many media critics note that Denton has history on his side, and I certainly agree. His staff memos, often leaked to Romensko, offer more insight on digital media and the future of news than 90% of Mashable articles. He has grown Gawker Media into a powerhouse that has left most of its blog brethren in its dust. But over the last few months he has issued several quotes about Gawker’s strategy that seem suspect. Recently, for instance, he claimed that Facebook is the only social media traffic driver of any worth and that Twitter is all but useless. True to form, the new design does not feature any social media sharing buttons other than Facebook’s. Whatever metrics Denton was using to make that calculation, he’s wrong. If you look at bit.ly click metrics, a piece published on a site like The Oatmeal or The Onion can get upwards of 50,000 clicks. And that only includes the Twitter users who use Bit.ly and not other shortening services. Gawker Media may be big, but it’s not so big that it can disregard 50,000 pageviews on a single article as useless. Yes, I agree that news sites can get a little too enthusiastic about including every social media icon, no matter how inconsequential, but you can’t deny Twitter’s ability to quickly and effectively spread content.

Speaking of Facebook, you would think a guy who considers it to be so important would design his site so you can actually link to its posts from your Facebook profile. I don’t know if this is a temporary glitch, but for the past few days I have literally not been able to post Gawker URLs into my Facebook news feed. Not only does Facebook not call up any headlines or images when you try to post a link, it doesn’t even recognize it as a proper URL. I currently get the below error message every time I try to post a Gawker link into my news feed:

In terms of traffic, we’ve already seen a downward trend in page views just in the few days since the redesign launched (though to be fair, Denton predicted an initial decrease as readers adjust to the site). For years, all Gawker Media blogs included their Sitemeter statistics for anyone who wanted to peruse them, but if they’re still available, I can’t find them. If they are actually gone, I can’t help but wonder if part of the reason is so that nosy media writers like me can’t constantly scrutinize them over the next few months.

Reading interviews with Nick Denton over the last year as he slowly released details about his guiding philosophy, I couldn’t help but feel ambivalent about the mogul’s prognosis for the economics of blogging. The reverse-chronological website belongs in the kiddie pool, he seems to be saying. The users can’t be trusted to pick the most important posts; an editor must instead. But isn’t this simply the philosophy of every major print newspaper? Isn’t this the kind of thinking from which we’ve been moving away? Whatever happened to the idea that the front page is dead?

The other day former Gawker editor Gabriel Snyder said he was “on the record that I think the redesigns will fail. And I’m now officially opening the betting pool. I think Denton is going to be forced to pull back on this. If anyone wants to wager that the redesign don’t get yanked back (or greatly modified) by, let’s say, June 1… I’ll take your bet.” Well, Denton actually took that bet, and will base Gawker Media’s success or failure on this October’s traffic numbers.

In the past, I would have bet on Denton over any internet media mogul out there, but this time I’m not so sure. I remember reading in a few places that the Gawker redesign will negate the need for it to release any mobile apps. The site is supposed to look its slickest on a tablet computer. But while the redesign may be absolutely beautiful for your iPad, for the open web it’s a total, utter mess.

As the shopping days before Christmas quickly run out, here are some last minute gift ideas for the blogger in your life.

The iPhone Glove by Dots- $20

I feel warmer just looking at these gorgeous geek gloves. Knitted from one-hundred percent merino lambswool sourced from the United Kingdom the gloves undergo a rigorous softening process, working every fiber to its utmost comfort. They are then finished with a straight stretch cuff so that the thumb, index, and middle fingertips can operate an iPhone with skin-like responsiveness.

They are available for both men and women and come in four different colors.

Belkin Laptop Hideaway- £23.46

Let’s face it, gadgets aren’t exactly French Country chic. If you’re trying to keep your house looking nice for relatives, this Laptop Hideaway will be your savior. The hideaway bad is made to sit on the floor next to your couch (or bed, chair, or desk), while keeping your laptop protected and hidden away from view. The hideaway has enough room for your power supply, mouse and paperwork. It fits 15.4-inch laptops-both widescreen and standard.

TikTok and LunaTik iPod Nano Watches- $34.95, $69.95

In November, we featured TikTok’s iPod Nano Watch, which raised close to $1 million on Kickstarter, grabbing the spot for most money raised on the fund crowdsourcing site to date. Based on the idea that the world’s first multi-touch watch should be designed for the Nano, Scott Wilson, the founder of Chicago-based design studio MINIMAL, made two designs, the TikTok and its premier partner the LunaTik, which both transform the iPod Nano into the world’s coolest multi-touch watches. The watches are hardly just Nanos slapped onto cheap plastic. They are well designed; engineered and manufactured from premium materials that complement the quality of Apple products. Buy here.

Kodak Zi8 – $99

Blogging isn’t just about words these days and a video can be a fun way of telling a story in a different way. If the blogger in your life is partial to gadgets, a handheld video camera might be just the ticket.

The Kodak Zi8 is what The Next Web team can often be seen carrying at events and conferences and we highly recommend it. This tiny device is good looking, highly capable and rugged enough to take a few knocks along the way too.

It takes SD cards, has a replaceable battery and charges over USB, meaning that it lasts and lasts. It shoots excellent video for its diminutive size too, recording 720p video that looks great on the web.

Flickr Pro Account – $24.95

Flickr is mainly used for sharing photos, but it’s a really good place for hosting the images you use in blog posts too, especially if you use a lot and don;t want to be stung by bandwidth charges or exceed the storage limit on your blog account.

The free Flickr account is fine to start with, but a Pro account gives unlimited storage, stats about your account and the ability to play back HD videos at full resolution. Flickr also makes Pro accounts really easy to give as gifts, either as a printable card or by email.

Logitech H555 headset – $59.99

If the blogger in your life is the news-gathering or podcasting type, they may well spend a lot of time using Skype or recording audio into their computer. While many computers now have built-in microphones, a decent headset is invaluable for cutting out background noise and capturing voices clearly.

This Logitech H555 does the job well at an appealing price, featuring a noise-cancelling microphone and ‘Super Wideband Audio’ for clearer Internet calls.

Laptop skin – $49.95

Who wants to blog at home all the time? Sometimes it’s good to get out and about. However (and we’re speaking from experience here), dropping your laptop into your bag without protection is asking for trouble. It will be scuffed, cracked or chipped before you know it.

InCase offers a range of practical and stylish skins and cases for 13, 15 and 17-inch notebooks. We’re quite fond of this animal-themed design, but more minimalist looks are available too.

MacBook Air – $999 – $1599

If money’s no object and you’re looking to give the blogger in your life the ultimate gift, we have to recommend the recently released MacBook Air models. Available in both petite 11-inch and more substantial 13-inch models, the MacBook Air is light to carry around (you probably won’t even notice it’s in your bag) and  stunningly thin.

What’s more, despite a relatively slow processor, it’s perfectly  capable of handling all the blogging tasks you can throw at it. Right now, I’ve got 12 tabs open in Chrome, Spotify, iChat, the GIMP image editor, Evernote and three Adobe Air apps running on my 13-incher and it’s not flinching. It really is the perfect blogging machine.

Coconatch $16

Coconatch is a social robot that brings your @replies to life by lighting up and performing a wobbly happy dance when you receive a message from Twitter.

These little robots work via USB and will burst into dance after receiving a new message from its unique email address. This means you’ll need to direct Twitter notifications to Coconatch’s email address, and we’re assuming it also means users aren’t limited to just Twitter notifications–it appears that any new email will cause the robot to get groovy.

If indeed all new emails are supported, users could potentially use Coconatch to work with any social network as long as the network’s updates are being directed to the robot’s email address.

Livescribe $208

If you’re at a conference, event or interview and typing is just inconvenient, the Livescribe is basically a computer in a pen.

Using this clever pen and smart paper, the Livescribe converts handwriting for conversion to text on a PC, but also allows you to hear what was being said at the moment of writing by tapping on the note.