Back to Blogger

At the beginning of May, Blogger introduced its first upgrade since being acquired by Google. The new features include a slick dashboard, a spiffy look, dozens of new templates, comments (bravo!) and a switch to cut comments on or off for each post, and posting via email or bookmarklet.

Yesterday Moveable Type released MT 3.0. It's a developer's edition, e.g. it's for us tinkerers. If you just want to go online and write, Moveable Type will steer you to TypePad, their hosted service.

The free version of MT is limited to 3 weblogs and 1 author. This is not enough for my needs. The Learning Circuits blog has many authors. I've also been using MT to run InternetTime.com, Workflow Instititute. www.jaycross, Meta-Learning Lab, a blog for the Berekley Path Wanderers, and five internal blogs. It may be time to go shopping. I have quite a bit of time invested in these blogs. On the other hand, I don't intend to write the Trotts a check for more than $1000 to convert to version 3.0. One wonders what version 4.0 will cost.

I'm seriously considering a return to the Blogger fold, which is where I used to maintain eight blogs (and where I fell in love with the blog-form.)

Last night I attended the Blogger Party in San Francisco (photos). The upbeat spirit of Ev, Jason, the other Blogger folks, and we Blogger groupies is ineffectious.

Driving over the Bay Bridge on my way to the event, I listened to Teri Gross interviewing Bill Moyers on Fresh Air. Bill went over the enormous list of magazines he reads to keep up with things. Then he said he reads a lot of blogs. "Blogging is the closest we have come to, in a long time, to the history of the American media in the beginning."' In the old days, if you wanted to run a newspaper, you plunked down $250 and bought a press. Editors were always covered with ink. Blogging is bringing back the independent voice.

Blogger founder Ev Williams

Life's Been Good (J. Walsh) I have a mansion forget the price Ain't never been there they tell me it's nice I live in hotels tear out the walls I have accountants pay for it all They say I'm crazy but I have a good time (Everybody say oh, yeah.....OH,YEAH) I'm just looking for clues at the scene of the crime Life's been good to me so far My Maserati does 185 I lost my license now I don't drive I have a limo ride in the back I lock the doors in case I'm attacked I'm making records my fans they can't wait They write me letters tell me I'm great So I got me an office gold records on the wall Just leave a message maybe I'll call Lucky I'm sane after all I've been through Everybody says I'm cool (He's cool) I can't complain but sometimes I still do Life's been good to me so far I go to parties sometimes until four It's hard to leave when you can't find the door It's tough to handle this fortune and fame Everybody's so different I haven't changed They say I'm lazy but it takes all my time Everybody says Oh yeah (Oh yeah) I keep on going guess I'll never know why Life's been good to me so far

I hadn't seen Ev and Jason since the party right after the announcement that Google was acquiring Blogger. Just reading about the Google IPO can make one giddy. I asked Jason if he'd bought his Maserati yet. No, he and Allison assured me that little had changed. They won't have to worry about funding their son's education, but they're still the same people. Ev seems the same as ever, too, still driven by creating cool stuff for his customers. Google has wisely let the Blogger team make its own way. Most large companies would have screwed things up by now, but Google's too smart to stifle the Bloggers team with a heavy-handed approach. I'm off to see about switching back to Blogger.

Posted by Jay Cross at May 14, 2004 12:48 PM | TrackBack