Every time I find myself reading content on a Blogger (blogspot) blog I feel a little nauseous. As I often find myself on a blogspot blog, I can get quite nauseous, so I will try to do something about it.
Blogger was one of the earlier blogging platforms, and so naturally there are a lot of great people blogging on there.
Why I despair when I find myself reading a post on Blogger:
- It is not open source, when there are excellent open source alternatives. .
- It uses CAPTCHA for comment submission which I have strong feelings about.
I am going to use this blog post, including updating it, to encourage people to move off of Blogger to an open source blogging platform or host.
I prefer Wordpress, that is why I participate in a minor way, but I will do what I can to at least find resources if they choose another path to say “Bye bye Blogger”.
My first “target”:
Ted Haeger, Director of Novell User Communities
Resolved! Ted now uses open source blogging tools. He blogs at:
Open Source Advocacy with Reverend Ted
Cool Blogs
Ted Haeger’s Personal Blog
Why I am Aware of his Blog
I recently discovered a blog of his while searching for information on Beagle, the GNOME desktop search tool. He wrote a response to Jason Brooks’ article “New GNOME Does Search Right“, requesting (rightly so) credit to include Novell.
Why I Think He will Leave Blogspot Behind
He seems personally invested in open source.
Background Research
I searched his five blogs for the term ‘blogger’ and ‘google and found one relevant link:
- More Blogger Woes: Trackbacks
- Ted, in his reply below, tells us his biggest issue with Blogger; astrology sucks. Over a year later, astrology still sucks.
Status
20060505 Ted is commitment to saying bye bye Blogger. It will take time, so if he does not mind I will check again with him in a month.
Resolved! Ted now uses open source blogging tools. He blogs at:
Open Source Advocacy with Reverend Ted
Cool Blogs
Ted Haeger’s Personal Blog
technorati tags: blogger, blogspot, open source, advocacy, open source advocacy, wordpress advocacy, wordpress, blogging, weblog, blogging platform, blogging service, blogging host
What will it take? Time.
I have a WordPress-hosted blog at http://www.novell.com/coolblogs . I was the primary driver for getting the site up at Novell, yet I only use it for notifying updates to the Cool Blogs program. I have decided not to move to it because I want to own my blog.
Far more than Blogspot’s technical shortcomings, feature needs and not being open source , my biggest gripe with Blogger is that they add “Gemini” to my profile. I’m a materialist/rationalist/atheist and forcing an astrological sign on my profile is really offensive.
It’s mostly a matter of time before I move from Blogger. Simply put, I have not researched a site to move to.
Many people use Blogger because it required relatively little setting up and has a simpler interface when it comes to posting. It’s an easy way for those who want to get their thoughts online to do so. If there was a site toting Wordpress that did the same job and was publicised enough a couple of people may move.
All I’m saying is there’s no way you’ll get a complete transition.
Go for it though. I’m all for WP!
I suppose one of the reasons you and I know each other is that I came to the same conclusion about Blogger, though perhaps for different reasons than you, last October. Those reasons are summarized in this final post there in 2005. So although I reached more or less the same conclusion (that Blogger was no longer satisfactory to me), I seriously doubt your campaign or any other will have much effect on them. Free is awfully attractive to the beginning blogger, and if you combine that with famous, you have an almost unbeatable combination. Nevertheless, best wishes in your battle with the windmill, Don Quixote.
The link is to my son’s site…It is hosted on my server, however, it is powered by blogger…
http://www.edmistons.com/elijah
Take a good look, you’d never guess that was the casse!!
I hate blogger sites!! They suck!! Throw in some of the ‘features’ of the ‘open api’ and you get a pain in the neck…But my wife, not being too savvy, likes the ease of posting out of Picasa.
Two clicks from camera to web – that is pretty cool, the trick was making the site NOT look like a typical blogger site.
5 blogger blogs and some template tweaking – voila, a workflow nightmare for me the admin, but for the one who posts the content, pice of cake..
I am ferociously working through code to implement a new site for our enitre family baseed on Joomla! – but being the picky artist/coder that I am, it’s taking a while. I also need a way for my wife to post content easily, from any medium (phone, mail, pc, IM) and to be able to manage them on the front end or the back end.
It’s looking like there will be a tranistional period where I will allow her to post with blogger, but use the open source CMS to consume and import the RSS generated by my blogger blogs…
I’ll keep ya posted!
~Jeremy
Vixus, have you or your friends tried WordPress.com? Where does it fail that Blogger succeeds?
CaptQuirk, I think I would know you if you were still on Blogger.
I wonder if it is still the case that you can’t moderate comments on Blogger? That is another powerful reason not to use Blogger.
I find your reference to the windmill and Don Quixote insulting. I am not suggesting “thou shall not use Blogger”. This is an exploratory, progressive process to demonstrate that using Blogger is not the best choice, or identify what things need to improve in open source offers to make that the case. And it is to offer assistance with people that want to migrate from Blogger.
Actually, Blogger implemented the ability to moderate comments soon after I left them because they didn’t have it. However, having created my blog on WordPress.com, I had no desire to go back.
As to my having offended you by the Don Quixote reference, I didn’t intend it to be insuting. I used it as a reference to what seems like an uphill battle to me. I never thought your motives were anything but positive, and I support them completely. So once again, I’ll offer you my apology. I guess I was too clever by half. Don Quixote, for the record, is one of my favorite characters because of his willingness to believe in the best in people (Aldonsa) and see what no one else saw in them. So, for me, to be compared to Don Quixote is anything but an insult. I’m sorry it came across that way to you.
I couldn’t agree with you more that WordPress is a better place to blog. I think my next move will be to my own hosted domain however, not because of any problems at WordPress.com but because I’d like the greater power that having full access to all of WordPress’s features affords.
Jeremy, well met! Elijah’s site looks great. Well designed. You are achieving what is most important, your wife’s ease of communication. Your efforts are well worth it!
I also think your efforts towards an open source solution are well worth it. Be sure to document your challenges and victories so we can all benefit!
Ted, thank you for the taking the time to reply.
I am very impressed with your and Novell’s work.
Novell: Cool Blogs is great. Novell really gets the importance of the people that are Novell.
If you do not mind, I will check again with you in a month and see where you are?
Have you given WordPress.com a try, or are you considering hosting yourself? Wordpress.com includes importing of your Blogger blog, though I have not personally tried. If you do try, your feedback is appreciated.
If I can assist you with your research, please let me know.
I imported my blogger into wordpress before 2.0, it was really quite easy. So it can only be easier with a scripts and all written for you already. I don’t like blogger either, but alas both my sisters use it, i should try and make them switch, but they are stubborn coots. Good luck with it.
I did switch to Wordpress finally. http://danakin.wordpress.com/
The thing with Blogger not being open source is that it is still free. Most people cannot differentiate between the two.
There were some things that kept me from changing to WP, such as limited control over design (when not self-hosted) and the importing feature was either hidden or down when I was trying out WP earlier this year.
Honestly, I have no issues with Blogger, other than the downtime that randomly occurs. I can do everything I need to do as a blogger through both Blogger and Wordpress, but right now WP seems clean and new.
It was Xanga that sent me screaming. Now that’s some bad stuff there.
After speaking to my friend Martin Buckley today, I decided to give the WordPress import a shot. Bottom line is that I need to be able to tag my posts and I either cannot figure it on Blogger, or it doesn’t exist. Since Cool Blogs is on WordPress, I’m now using wordpress.com. Fewer synapses to dedicate to Blog software.
The import feature sucks. Yes, it got my blog, and my comments. But the loss of my template and layouts really bites. So, I’m still not cut over from my Blogger account.
More on this later.
Wow Ted, You are a person that gets things done, and raises the bar! Only a month after the challenge, you have walked the walk, and put out a fair challenge to WordPress developers to make saying Bye bye Blogger a real possibility for more people. I am looking forward to further updates.
Blogger sucks. it really does.
http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/archives/001280.html
Hey, foolswisdom:
James Governer weighs in? Nice! James is a very sharp guy.
–Ted
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Blogger? It works.
Wordpress, Textpattern and the like are all great if you want to create a whole website and do the designing stuff but if all you want to do is write a blog and completely concentrate on the content then I would choose blogger.
Perhaps I would export it to an external FTP site to get rid of the .blogspot.com extension but there is nothing worse than going to a domain and seeing StopDesigns Tic Tac template.
I’ve done the whole web design own-personal-website-powered-by-wordpress thing before, and it doesnt suit me.
And it is free.
Maybe once Shuttle is released I will think about moving back and running “Import from Blogger” (the current wordpress admin is horribly ugly. Fugly even.)
@Ted Haeger: the horoscope thing was one of the main reasons I left blogger also. That and its republishing got me banned from my web host repeatedly.