Blogger Backlash?

I am a paying Blogger Pro subscriber and I am very happy to see this. I was just about ready to drop them. I was having so many problems, and there wasn’t any real support to get problems fixed. There wasn’t anyone who could really answer your questions. Support was terrible. I was never able to get “archives” to work correctly, and publishing sometimes worked, and when it did for some reason it took 10 minutes before it would show up on your site.

Also, there hasn’t been any new functionality added in a long time especially compared to MT. I had easily outgrown the service. The only reason I stayed with them was because I had spent a lot of time developing a custom template that integrated nicely into my site.

The only thing that will “die along the way” is the lack of updates, bad service, and the lack of help when you need it.

I agree, Woody. The paying users are the only one to benefit from this, with the non-paying users (both Blogger and BlogSpot) seeing their services drastically cut. Blogger will most likely end up creating some sort of "forced upgrade"- making free services so shoddy, that no one would dare use it. And who can blame them? Ev and gang deserve to make money from their work.

I admit that Blogger is a great tool. AFAIK Blogger never made much money... yet helped create the "sensation" that is blogging. I am glad to see the Pyra folks make some money from their efforts... and if someone had to buy them out, better Google than you know who! ;)

But when MoveableType sells to the highest bidder... I'll lift a beer in sorrow.

Ryan, I don't think Google will do anything to Bloggers current state of the free resource. Take a look at Google Groups, New, Froogle, etc. All of these services are free of charge (unless something has happened in the last hour that I am unaware of.

If anything, this will really bring blogging to the masses in ways that Moveable Type and Radio can not.

My question is this, what happens when everyone is blogging? Who will blog the bloggers?

I would give Google the benfit of the doubt, considering their code of conduct: Don't Be Evil.

This is great news. I don't know how people have put up with blogger for this long. I've been fighting with it for the past month, (trying to help a friend with her blog) and it's been more than frustrating. There's basically no support. None. If you have a problem, you're screwed. I've come to hate it.

While I'd agree that corporate America has the ability to ruin an independent scene, I think the difference here is that with a few exceptions, blogging is not about making money. I don't use a content management tool, so all I need is Notepad and I'm off and running. With blogging, content is personal; the tools of production can be exploited (and ruined) but the content is in the hands of the little people.

I don't understand why people complain about Blogger's lack of support- it's free. And Blogger isn't necessary- there's always xanga and livejournal, etc. Google won't be evil, and has so many people watching it's search engine mechanics that blogger people will not end up with some preferential rankings simply because they use Blogger rather than another content management tool. The move could only make Blogger more effective (in terms of reliability and speed)- under the assumption that Google servers/tech is used.

my two cents.

Free??? HA! We've spent over $200 bucks with blogger this year. Since there's no support, there was no way to transfer the domain/blog/account name. We were forced to open a second pro.blogger account just to change the URL. We chose blogger because it was the only web app my friend was able to access from Uzbekistan.