This article in Wired explains the reasons why I left Blogger long ago — even before it was acquired by Google:- too many technical snafus led to too many missed opportunities. Ideas, especially in the blogosphere, are perishable and if not disseminated in time, quickly become stale and irrelevant.
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
1 - Angie
Well, I haven't given up on it yet.
2 - Richard Porter
I use Blogger now and I am aware of it being down quite often this week alone. If there was a better product out there, I'd probably jump to it.
3 - Richard Porter
Anybody know of a better blog product?
Richard Porter
Check out my latest post, TOP TEN HEADLINES THAT ARE NOT APRIL FOOLS DAY JOKES
4 - Margaret Romao Toigo
Richard Porter wrote: "Anybody know of a better blog product?"
Yes, almost anything that does not limit your software choices and forces you to rely on some stranger's hardware. If you have the skills to do so, it is almost always better to "roll your own" website than it is to use a third party service.
I just switched to WordPress, which is pretty cool. It's free and its fairly easy -- comparatively speaking - to install and configure. If you know a little bit of PHP (which is not required to get WordPress up and running), it is extremely flexible and highly customizable. If you know a tiny bit of CSS and PHP, it lets you say "goodbye forever" to HTML tables (I don't know about you but I hate those things).
WordPress is blogging software, not a service like Blogger, so you need to have PHP and MySQL (both free) installed on your server. If you prefer to use a web hosting service, make sure that it has PHP and MySQL capability before you sign up.
5 - DrPat
Imagine what they might say if they actually paid for the service?
Yep, Blogger is free - free software, free hosting, free upgrades, no charge. And while I've been just as ticked off about these issues, I guess my response was just to save my posts to text docs before I clicked the "Publish" button.
That way, I don't lose what I've written when Blogger cacks.
Oh, yeah, I also generate an error page and drop it to Blogger Help often - as a long-time tech support person, I know that sometimes the clues come from users willing to share (and savvy enough to provide helpful information).
6 - Bennett
I'm on EZSG Blog, a free site ($2.50 a month to eliminate google ads) that uses WordPress. So far it's been a good experience. Great tech support, and downtime has been minimal.
ezsgblog.com
7 - Beryl
I can not get to my blogger.com site to edit it. What is wrong with it?
8 - kirsten
Yep, me too Beryl, I'm locked out. I have HAD IT. This is pretty much the last straw in what seems to have been a particularly bad couple of weeks - even by Blogger standards. And yes, it's free...but this is getting ridiculous.
Thanks for this article Niraj...been wanting to vent for a while...!
And thanks Margaret for the WordPress suggestion - I'm going to go and check it out right now...
9 - DrPat
Incidentally, by my own count, 8 of 10 "Blogger sucks" entries in Google are dated before January 2004. 1 in 20 refer to the current issues (last month to date), per my Q&D count.
10 - kirsten
Does anyone know of any blogging software that lets you include just the first paragraph of your text, and then a link to take you to the full text...? Kind of like here at blogcritics...!
It may be a very stupid question, but, er, if anyone comes across this and has some suggestions I'd be most grateful...
11 - bhw
Kirsten, you can do that with Movable Type.
12 - a.
I've been locked out of Blogger for hours. What's up? This sucks.
13 - Leoniceno
I picked out Journalspace for my blog, pretty much at random, and I've been satisfied with it. There are plenty of features for me, and there system of #VARIABLES# makes setting up pages relatively easy. They also seem to have a large number of people willing to do formats.
I've had trouble setting up an RSS feed, though.
14 - Dave Nalle
I'm using pMachine right now and hosting it myself. It's not bad, and I'm used to it. But if I were going to start out from scratch I'd use WordPress. It's free (which pMachine isn't), has great support, and has all the features of much more expensive packages.
Dave
15 - Aaron
I host my own blog and just use blogger to maintain it cause its easy and no hassle (sadly im a web dev). I love it 98% of the time. It just sucks at times like this. You think Google would get there programmers on the prob.
I do think I remember reading about a large update to the blogger service soon in my user CP. Could it be down for this major upgrade? I understand things can go wrong during upgrades. I say cut them some slack.
16 - Brooke
I don't use Blogger I use something called Blogware although it can make me slightly testy at times. Is there a known superior Blog site out there?
17 - Jaded
OMG! Who is asleep at the server?! Blogger is down again, and although it's easy to forget how UNRELIABLE Blogger is when it's working, I am going to remember this week of HELL and move on. I might try blog.efx2.com
18 - Cass
Maybe if Blogger didn't allow so many SPAM blogs to be created, it wouldn't be having so much trouble.
19 - Lono
I have had 90% wonderful experiences with Blogger. however, last night it was a major pain in the ass as it went down again.
They have friggin google servers, I can't imagine how a few nerds with English degrees can crash this company's servers.
It is free though, so who am I to bitch?
20 - DrPat
Today Blogger has a new tool in the Edit Posts window: Recover Post, kind of a global Revert - their explanation is that a backup copy of the post is saved periodically as a browser cookie.
Then, they expect a 15-minute down at noon Pacific Time today (4/8), and the Status window warns:
21 - DrPat
Blogger has some new news out:
They also note that Isn't blogging fun? I recommend keeping a text-file copy of the body of your blog post as you work. That way, you can use the preview and HTML tools of Blogger, but still preserve your work in case it cacks.22 - alienboy
I've started writing the text in word or notepad and then pasting it to the blogger post window.
23 - C L Blessing
Some of the pictures I put in my blog have been removed and when I try to edit the posts to insert them again, I can't. Is there a time limit to editing a blog?
24 - BryGuy
Blogger has been done all day for me....can't even check out the status page.
I switched over to WordPress last week....can't wait to get the new blog up and running.