Another thing I know about Blogger is that it is almost impossible to get in touch with those who presumably oversee it and maintain it. If something goes wrong then there's nobody to complain to. Take trolls for example. They can apparently dish out their toxins with impunity because "Blogger" is not set up to block or restrain them.
A year or so ago, most bloggers were irritated by Blogger's growing tendency to send wholesome comments to "Spam". Sometimes they would send dozens of legitimate comments there without explanation. I am not the only blogger who found some of my own comments from long ago dumped in my Spam folder. There was just no logic to the activity.
Fortunately, the spam issue died down and now we seem to be back to normal on that one.
Now some new issues are arising. For example, you might click on a link to somebody else's blog and instead of simply connecting you may be asked if you want to be redirected to a given blog address.
"The Headland" is mine and perhaps surprisingly so is "Yorkshire Pudding" but "Occupied Country" is now defunct. It was created by Ian Rhodes in Manchester and I used to follow it avidly. "Bangkok Boothys" belonged to my friend and former teaching colleague Jonathan who now lives and works in Shanghai, China. I can't remember any details of "Life Is All Cobblers".
Anyway, I don't want to moan overmuch about Blogger. After all, its hosting service has always been free and on balance things have been far more right than wrong. I guess I should be grateful.
One thing that sometimes crosses my mind is the possibility that at some stage in the future, Google could simply pull the plug on "Blogger" and send all of our blogs with their attached archives into a whirlpool called "The End". That is certainly within the realm of possibilities. After all, they did it to the "Panoramio" photo mapping project that spanned the globe. Go here.
We are all just particles in a whirlpool. Be thankful for all the fun you've had so far! 🤣
ReplyDeleteI have been whirling so long in this whirlpool that I think I am going to be sick.
DeleteThe re-direction link is weird. I don't understand why it happens but it takes a second to click and the correct site to come up, so I can live with that one.
ReplyDeleteYou know more than most about the careless ways of Blogger.
DeleteI hope Google doesn't decide to end Blogger anytime soon, how else can I legitimately "waste" several hours a day if not by reading and commenting with friends all over the world? I'll have to go back to reading actual books like I used to, which might not be a bad thing, I have so many waiting to be read on my kindle and real books beside my bed.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I have spent far, far too many hours in Blogworld when I could have been reading books or writing a novel... "Elsie and The Pudding" - a tale of romance and intrigue across oceans.
DeleteAh well. I don't think the loss of my blog diary will cause any great disruption to the great scheme of things.
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary my Manx dumpling, your blog is already being archived by The National Library on Euston Road, London.
DeleteMy photo from 2012 was on here for years. Then one day they took it off. I like Blogger. I also don't understand why you can't speak or email a human being.
ReplyDeleteI guess that having a customer service team would cost a lot of dollars.
DeleteThat is truly weird about "your" blogs which aren't yours at all. I have checked my profile and under "my blogs" only the two that really are mine show up.
ReplyDeleteTo my knowlege, the service is cross-financed like many other "free" Google products. We pay with our data, which are sold to advertising and marketing firms. Many of us know the phenomenon: We post something OR mention something in an email using a googlemail.com or gmail.com-account (for instance "I am thinking about buying a new lawnmower"), and magically, adverts showing just the item we have mentioned in an email or on a blog post appear.
If blogger was deactivated, I would lose most of my photos, except for the ones showing people who have not given me their permission to be shown on my blog, such as O.K. and my sister. Of course I could always create a backup, but so far, I have been too lazy to do that.
PS: Since you and some of your commenters (such as Andrew) have been wondering about the redirecting, I have looked that up and found various explanations about it on the wikipedia entry about blogger:
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogger_(service)
Thanks for your friendly professional input Meike and for alerting to me to the Wikipedia page.
DeleteWhat I find odd is that Google tends not to index blogspot blogs on Google search. Some of mine (e.g. Eric Kershaw, guitarist, Dennis J Hanson Eastrington stamp dealer) used to come up in the top 3 when I had a dedicated URL, but since I reverted to the standard blogspot.com address they are not listed in search results at all. They are "trawled but not indexed". Bing and other search sites such as duckduckgo do index them.
ReplyDeleteMy-my I am coming up on 20 years on blogger. Google profits by advertising revenue, and data that is used to direct other marketing. If anyone wonders, I get about $10 a month, in exchange for Google placing ads on my blog.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand how it works either and have often wondered why google hosts it too. My son gifted me with my own domain name so although I do use the blogger app to write my posts and so forth, they publish under blessourhearts.net.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea how that works either. I do pay for my own domain name but it is very, very little.
Blogger has some very good things but I worry about some of the things that go wrong. Yes, what's behind blogger is a bit of a mystery.
ReplyDeleteI think Google benefits in some small way by keeping us all on their platform -- maybe for click counts or the possibility we will click onto a blog with advertising. I'm honestly not sure. I'd like to think if Google discontinues support for Blogger they would at least allow it to run on autopilot, or give us some option for archiving or transferring our content.
ReplyDeleteAren't the photos that we see on Google Maps from Panoramio? I always thought so. (In other words I think the photos are still out there...?)
That seems very odd how blogs not belonging to you could end up listed as your own rather than with those you follow. - I just checked my own profile and the two listed as mine are correct (one dormant since many years but still available). The profile list of blogs I follow on the other hand is far from up to date - but I'm guessing that's probably to do with how/when/where I added them...
ReplyDeleteI'm just a commenter so I know absolutely nothing about Blogger. I'm happy that those that blog take the time to put together so many interesting posts. I love traveling around the world through my blog reading adventures.
ReplyDeleteAccording to blogger I’ve had a total of 243 million page views since 2005
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe a word of it
i seem to remember..... after running my own domain....then a blog on msn spaces........ i mived to blogger...... all the previous stuff is long gone...... i do think there's an option somewhere in blogger to "download" a copy of your own blog...... i might be wrong
ReplyDeleteYou've unlocked new anxieties for me, especially if Trump deems us bloggers all too "woke" *rolls eyes.* Fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteI just checked my blogger profile and, lo and behold, it says some old obsolete 2011 blog called "One Little Robyn" belongs to me -- WTF?
ReplyDelete