Is Google Neglecting Blogger? 149
Ian Lamont writes "For years, I've been frustrated by Blogger's relatively limited functionality and other problems. For instance, we've heard about Blogger's security flaws since the beginning of this decade. Blogger's latest problem, which lets bots bypass CAPTCHAs in order to set up spam blogs, is not just a sign of Google's disregard for security — it's symptomatic of Google's neglect of its Blogger service. For instance, Blogger is just now rolling out a feature that lets writers publish in the future, years after similar functionality was released in Wordpress and Moveable Type. Is Blogger destined to be a sideshow as long as Google keeps acquiring and building more high-profile services, such as Google Maps and YouTube?"
it's still in beta (Score:4, Funny)
Re:it's still in beta (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:it's still in beta (Score:5, Funny)
That's funny, I had a girlfriend that made the same comparison with me.
Re:it's still in beta (Score:5, Funny)
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If Google is neglecting Blogger.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not as if the other mentioned services (such as Wordpress) don't have free alternatives.
If you're serious about it all, you would buy your own domain, and use (and customize) any CMS to your liking.
I find it very funny to see these complaints (definitely "They've been neglecting it for years" ; Then why are you still blogging on there?
Re:If Google is neglecting Blogger.... (Score:5, Informative)
Google hasn't been neglecting Blogger so much as Blogger has been getting PWNED by faster-developing companies who can roll out more / better features faster.
Re:If Google is neglecting Blogger.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Given their money, with fairly little effort I think Google could put Wordpress and other specialty blog programs out of business. Unlike Microsoft, I don't think part of Google's mindset is eliminating all competitors everywhere. A good example of that was the recent Campfire fiasco, where Google threw together a quick and dirty application example that was almost identical to a for-pay product from another company. The other company complained, Google nixed the example product (in this case as the function was so trivial, without a lot of bells and whistles, I don't think they should have).
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Features may not always be useful, but Blogger's missing some fairly obvious ones if that's any indication!
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I blogged there as late as 2003. It sucked then, it still sucks now. There is no support - period. It's pure anarchy. Others who don't know any better stay there and put up with it.
But even if I've left, Blogger's suckiness still affects the entire web. Spamblogs still come up in search results, spamblogs still jam my server logs with bogus referrer hits, half the social bookmark sites link to trashblogs that crash after 10 hits, and furthermore it gives a bad name
Re:If Google is neglecting Blogger.... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is still far nicer than a lot of the free blogs I have been forced to visit by friends who have gone overseas and signed up with a dedicated travel site, in which the page is FULL of ads, hard to navigate, no RSS and frankly a pain on the eyes with the tropical island colour themes.
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Once all old posts are imported to the new blog, delete everything old and make a new post with the link to the new blog, asking your users to update their bookmarks/rss links/whatever.
>converting your blog's skin
Since your users are too dumb to get used to a new one?
>getting search engines to realise your old blog doesn't exist anymore
With time, this happens automatically. Remember, the best way to get good search page rankings is to NOT bother with t
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Well, I have been blogging on Blogger since late last year (see my sig, or http://mayaposch.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com] for those with sigs turned off) and for my purposes it's more than sufficient. I write the blog posts locally in an editor, then copy-paste them to the WYSIWYG editor of Blogger, of which I only use the spell-check function, which is okay, add some tags and publish the thing.
With such a kind of interaction it's hard to find many faults with Blogger's setup :) Regardless, I'll soon, within a month, be
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Google does seem to have NIHS (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Google does seem to have NIHS (Score:4, Informative)
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http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/02/mapping-your-way.html [blogspot.com]
Or at least, it was acquired before it was launched.
Via:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#Development_history [wikipedia.org]
usenet spam from gmail accounts (Score:5, Insightful)
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Do you think the posters in comp.lang.python (which is also bridged to a python.org mailing list) are faking these headers:
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It's harder to fake the other headers, created by news servers en route, and if you look at all headers:
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Some usenet providers try and filter spam, some don't (and some actually advertise that they deliver everything rather than missing any - which would make sense if there was easily configurable spam filtering at the client or ISP level). Thunderbird's (current) spam filtering on usenet is a bit poo, and my ISP (at least) doesn't have a usenet spam filter in place.
Fo
Re:usenet spam from gmail accounts (Score:5, Interesting)
Absolutely! I just came in here to say this.
For my part, I eventually did cave in and block Google Groups-originating posts entirely. I've seen, possibly, five spam messages on any of my favorite newsgroups during the three weeks that I've been blocking Google.
The company has, in point of fact, exhibited a tendency to neglect some of its services over time. This is bad enough when it comes to Blogger -- people put in many hours to become established there, although let's face it, it's not as though they have a service-level agreement with Google. But neglecting Google Groups and refusing to act upon numerous spam reports, to the extent that groups like comp.lang.python and rec.bicycles.tech become absolutely useless you block all GG-originating posts? That's inexcusable. If this were anyone other than Google they would have been issued the UDP a long time ago.
So yes, by all means, block Google Groups, because they have chronically and increasingly failed to fulfill their responsibilities to the Usenet community. And put a message in your signature to this effect, so that Google Groups posters will know why you are ignoring their articles; and so that they will consider moving to a different service.
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Re:usenet spam from gmail accounts (Score:4, Insightful)
September 1993. Forever and ever.
Re:usenet spam from gmail accounts (Score:4, Informative)
It's had its ups and downs since then with respect to the volume of spam. (Thanks to Google, the present timeframe is definitely one of the "downs".) But yeah, Usenet is still around, and it's not going away any time soon.
Many programming and other technology-related groups are still very active. Usenet is one of the best places to go for advice on the C programming language (comp.lang.c), information about PICs (sci.electronics.design), Linux advice (comp.os.linux.misc), or even cooking tips (rec.food.cooking).
Usenet has its weaknesses, but it also has some unique strengths versus Web-based discussion forums: everything is organized (more or less) hierarchically; the user interface is whatever you want it to be; and it's easy to download and archive interesting posts. These features appeal to enough people, apparently, to keep it going...
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Maybe it's the work of my Usenet provider, news.individual.net, I dunno. The 10 EUR p.a. were well spent up to now, I got a service with great reliability.
Oh yes, and I use Usenet since 1990/1991 or
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Seriously, a huge portion of my spam, and IMHO the far worse bounce spam, comes from Gmail. Google never acts upon spam reports, nor can they be asked to crack down on splogs even when users are doing all the sleuthing work. If they want to continue pri
It's from Google Groups servers (Score:2)
The email address the Usenet post claims to be from is not authenticated in most Usenet servers. Maybe Google Groups now limits these to be Gmail addresses; or maybe not. But what I have found is that virtually all of this recent dramatic rise in spam on Usenet is from the actual Google Groups servers, with googlegroups.com in the Message-ID header (not gmail.com). I could not see any means for a Google Groups user to override the message ID, so I blocked all posts based on the message ID. Since the mes
Check the header-id (Score:1)
Here's a site on the subject: improve usenet [improve-usenet.org]
Just like Google Page Creator (Score:2)
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Sites (Score:4, Interesting)
I think they should scrap Pages, replace it with Sites, and add subversion access, like they do with the Code Wiki.
Speaking of the Code Wiki, that should probably also be replaced with Google Sites...
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Open page creator, look to the right at "uploaded stuff", click browse, select html file.
http://noglorp.googlepages.com/firefox.htm [googlepages.com]
- theres the firefox start page, saved and then uploaded to page creator. It looks all fucked because the image paths don't work, but the html itself it totally unmodified.
I fail? Really? (Score:2)
Blogger is fine... (Score:4, Insightful)
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General problem of spam with Google/Gmail (Score:5, Interesting)
Summary of Suggestion: How to make Gmail the spam target of absolute last resort.
The goal of this suggestion is to intelligently leverage and focus Google's expertise and credibility against the spammers and their accomplices. But where will the intelligence come from? From me, from you, from *ANYONE* who has a Gmail account and who wants to help oppose the annoying evil that is spam. Aggressively implemented, it could make Gmail into Spammer Heck--maybe to the point where only a fool would send spam to Gmail. (Yeah, there are plenty of fool spammers--but at least we'd get the laughs without the serious spammers.) Less spam = more value in Gmail.
So do you want to fight against spam? You, too, could become a WSF (wannabee spam fighter).
SpamSlam is my 'working draft' label. The idea is roughly based on other anti-spam systems--but with more smarts. Almost all email systems include one level of feedback in a Spam/NotSpam button. (For relative brevity and because it simplifies the draft implementation, I'm focusing on Web-based email here.) Think of SpamSlam as a report-spam-button on steroids. SpamSlam would report the spam, but also do much more. Essentially this Gmail feature would do some of the automatic analysis that any spam fighter has to do, get some intelligent feedback, and hopefully be able to act immediately against the spammer. Speed of action is actually crucial--cutting off the spammers' income is a key goal of this proposal.
Here is an approach to implementing it:
Clicking on SpamSlam would first trigger a low-cost automatic analysis of the email, including the headers. Let's call this Pass 0. Basically this is just using regular expressions to find things like email addresses, URLs, and phone numbers. The results would be used to generate a Pass 0 webform with comments and options (and explanations and links). This pass should also look for obfuscation and ask the wannabe spam fighter (WSF) to help break the spammers' attempts to evade the spam filters. (This is leveraging the spam's features against the spam--if a human can't figure out the spam, then the human can't send money to the spammer.) In many cases, this Pass 0 analysis may be able to suggest answers. If something like "drop@dead.com" appears in the header, then the WSF should just click the option 'fake email'. Perhaps the WSF would only need to click a check box to confirm that "V/1/A/6/R/A" is a drug and categorize the spam. Other times the WSF can actually type in the answer to the spammer's quasi-CAPTCHA, and then the SpamSlam function can do something. At the bottom of the 'exploded email' in Pass 0, there will be the usual submit button.
After the WSF submits that Pass 0 form, more analysis can begin. The data is no longer raw, but partly analyzed, and the system can start checking domains, registrars, relays, fancier types of header forgery, MX records, categories of crime, email routings, and even things like countries hosting the spammer. This kind of analysis will probably take a bit of time, but a new Pass 1 form will be prepared for the WSF to consider. Basically, this would mostly be a confirmation step for the obvious counteractions. That's stuff like complaining to identified senders and webhosts, but also things like reporting open relays and spambots. It also needs more flexibility and 'other' options in the responses at this point--we all know the spammers are cons
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I don't suppose the backbone people would agree to poison the DNS requests of the spam-supporting registrars? That would get their attention, at least.
Holy crap! (Score:5, Funny)
Batten down the handles - this teacup's in for a stormy night!
Just buy your own domain (Score:1, Redundant)
G-Integration (Score:4, Interesting)
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Same experience here.
Side note. In the beginning I was quite surprised by Flock doesn't support Google services/supports only few of them. (N.B. Flock's support os Google services greatly improved recently.)
After some time getting used to it - and you know appetite comes during lunch - I tried to do more (thinking that unobtrusive interface just hides some advanced functionality and all I need is just to read the advanced documentation) just to find out that most of Google services are WYSIAYG. There
What? (Score:1)
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Google is neglecting more than just blogger (Score:5, Informative)
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I do agree with your other points, though. One thing I really would like to see in Docs would be... offline support.
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There is an updated version of Google Talk at http://www.google.com/talk/labsedition/ [google.com] - the new features shown on that page are: emoticons, group chat and notifications from Gmail, Google Calendar and Orkut.
Not really. Its just the desktop version of the talk gadget (which uses flash/html). It doesn't support voice chat/ voice mails. So its more of a parallel version rather than an updated version.
One thing I really would like to see in Docs would be... offline support.
And you have it. Download google gears and you will be all set (currently English users only, I think). I wouldn't mind offline gmail. Like a backup of the last 100 emails and all the starred emails offline for reference.
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its a photo organiser, it organises photos, it can upload them to picasaweb
what developemnts are missing from picasaweb?
its a web album, its shows pictures, they can be uploaded from picasa
Ive not used either extensively, as i came across this ancient concept of folders in a unix handbook, its really wierd shit, but they both seam to do what they say on the tin, without featurism.
You Get What You Think You Pay For (Score:5, Insightful)
Could well be. I'd demand a refund.
There are plenty of examples of other companies that are behind the curve in some respect or another. In most cases people do the rational thing -- they vote with their feet. Er, fingers. So why is this a story? Because it's Google.
People tend to tip over the tallest ivory towers, and shorter ones get left alone. This tendency is so strong that people fail to recognize when they're complaining about something that's not only free, but intended to be a billboard for their host's advertising, something which in other situations would be the focus of their complaints.
Mark my prophecy: Someday some company is going to produce a desktop Linux so good that it's going to catch on and become if not a major competitor in the OS market, then at least the major distro of Linux. And they will suffer the same fate, becoming the punching bag of the Linux community, while lesser distros have no fewer problems and gather fewer complaints. And of those complaining, many will have obtained the free version of the distro. They will be out nothing, but will feel somehow justified because of the stature of their target, and will do so with gusto despite the fact that equally good distros are available to which they could switch. This irrationality will escape them, as it does the author of TFA.
The nature of the beast here is cognitive dissonance and perceived value. Biggest gets equated with best. Best carries the same weight as monetary investment, in that it's a perceived value, the association with the biggest name being the source of that. But when there is no actual investment the fact of the lack of actual investment fact starts to come to mind. The contradiction produces cognitive dissonance. To suppress that, the complaining becomes more vehement in this situation than in equally problematic situations with products or services of less perceived value garnering fewer complaints. So strong is this tendency that even when there is actual value in terms of money spent, the amount of complaints is out of proportion with the number of problems compared to other products or services that can even cost less or nothing.
Evidence to support the above assertion? Simple: it continues to occur even when those suffering from the contradiction are made aware of it. Even when told they are wearing Don Quixote's hat, they will still tilt at that largest windmill. Just watch.
Re:You Get What You Think You Pay For (Score:5, Insightful)
Post hoc predictions earn no points, at least if you're just looking at competition among Linux distributions. Remember Red Hat Linux? I was inside the E-Trade offices the day of the Red Hat IPO, and the people I was there with and I were just staring at the TVs watching it rocket up and up and up, and we were all exstatic that maybe now the time had come for "real" computing to get out there and put the smackdown on Microsoft. It was the darling for a bit, then the floodgates of criticism opened from all quarters in the Linux community about issues with RHL, both technical and political, and they were pulled down from that perch in short order thanks to a fractured community it had lost support from. I saw people going berserk over Red Hat's adoption of Gnome over KDE, even some people claiming that it was anti-Europe bias, as one example of how Red Hat, in short order, could do no right.
Fast forward to today, and Ubuntu is making huge strides in usability and popularity, introducing Linux into more homes and onto more desks than any other Linux distribution yet released. Coincident with that is a rising hue and cry against it from many corners, for being too simplistic and taking options away form the users, for cutting too many corners, for making it easier to install proprietary software like Nvidia's drivers, and other such complaints. It gets derided as candy-coated Linux that coddles stupid people.
The future is now, and was not too long ago as well, I guess.
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Fast forward to today, and Ubuntu is making huge strides in usability and popularity, introducing Linux into more homes and onto more desks than any other Linux distribution yet released. Coincident with that is a rising hue and cry against it from many corners, for being too simplistic and taking options away form the users, for cutting too many corners, for making it easier to install proprietary software like Nvidia's drivers, and other such complaints. It gets derided as candy-coated Linux that coddles stupid people.
The future is now, and was not too long ago as well, I guess.
You and the next respondent make pretty much the same observations. I disagree with you both only in terms of magnitude. RH and U(D) are indeed 'big' Linux distros, and RH is on the Big Board. And the effect I note is seen somewhat. But these are only biggest within the Linux community, and so far.
I'm think more along the lines of a distro that becomes so big that it rivals MacOS and the both are biting more and more into Microsoft's stranglehold. When people are picking up that distro who would not otherw
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Mark my prophecy: Someday some company is going to produce a desktop Linux so good that it's going to catch on and become if not a major competitor in the OS market, then at least the major distro of Linux. And they will suffer the same fate, becoming the punching bag of the Linux community, while lesser distros have no fewer problems and gather fewer complaints. And of those complaining, many will have obtained the free version of the distro. They will be out nothing, but will feel somehow justified because of the stature of their target, and will do so with gusto despite the fact that equally good distros are available to which they could switch. This irrationality will escape them, as it does the author of TFA.
Too late, I think UbuntuDupe [slashdot.org] already fulfilled your prophecy!!
Blogposts from the future? (Score:1, Funny)
Mood: Brooding and Mysterious. (And anonymous to avoid the fire
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Great for spammers. They can load up posts promoting their viagra/penis enlargers/casinos/bestiality/stock scams/fake Rolexes to be released one per day for the next five years in one hit. So I'm not mussed that this "service" is not offered.
Why care for just one more fish? (Score:1, Insightful)
Orkut (Score:2, Insightful)
I would imagine Blogger is better and more well know so they should drop Orkut and focus on one but if Blogger is really popular already they may feel they don't have to waste the resources.
Its simple (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is something I've never understood. Google's best selling point is that it can take something that has been done before (search engines weren't new, NASA WorldWind existed before Google Earth, etc), yet it came along and made them usable, likeable and popular.
Now they seem to just buy something and put very little effort into improving it (Blogger, YouTube, etc). Maybe it's because the engineers at Google are isolated from those at the purchased site, but it doesn't help consumers.
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other things neglected too (Score:4, Interesting)
However, in the face of little to no competition, the biggest area of neglect-concern is that of Search. It's far from perfect. In fact becoming less so with time due to the ever-higher number of people figuring out new ways to game Google search. Does it really take another couple of guys working in a garage somewhere to come up with the new search paradigm -- or could Google develop it themselves if they concentrated on their core business, and left blogging etc to others who specialize?
Google seriously needs competition - it's good for everyone, including Google.
Of course. Where's the revenue? (Score:5, Interesting)
Google offers a number of services that don't make money. Why should they put more effort into them?
Even ads on the "Google Content Network" aren't worth much to actual advertisers. There's a class action lawsuit against Google [searchenginewatch.com] over this. AdWords customers are complaining that it's hard to opt out of running, and paying for, ads on the "Google Content Network". Ads on search result pages are valuable, but there's a growing opinion, backed up by ROI measurements, that putting vaguely relevant ads on random sites is just a money drain on advertisers.
Here's a step by step guide [searchenginewatch.com] to what you have to do, as an AdWords customer, to turn off the running of your ads on the "Google Content Network". (After you've finished the setup phase, during which you're not offered an opportunity to opt out, click on "Edit Campaign Settings" and un-check the "Content Network" box).
For Google, Blogger is just a way to generate cheap pages for the "Google Content Network".
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They're making it sound like it's almost impossible to opt out of the content network
No, they're saying that Google made the "content network" opt-in by default, in a way that's misleading and deceptive. It's like having an order form with some item you probably don't want stuck on the form with an empty "Quantity" blank. If you don't explicitly put 0 in the blank, you're billed for the unwanted product.
Add Google Reader to the list (Score:2)
Add Google Reader (RSS feed agregator) to the list of neglected applications.
I use it solely because it works with some high-volume feeds - and other clients even with tight refresh timeouts missing messages (especially when my PC is not connected). But then with the high volume feeds you get literally no service: search and tagging in Google Reader is probably poorest search and tagging in whole set of Google applications.
Forums are filled with simple requests - yet for the past two years none of th
Surprise Surprise.. (Score:2)
They are losing their fan base (Score:1)
why stick with blogger if it sucks? (Score:1)
um (Score:1)
Stop adding new crap, and fix what you've got (Score:2)
I've got a Gmail account and a YouTube account. Start rolling those up. Ditch the Google Video interface entirely and forward it all to YouTube. Make GrandCentral tie in to Google Chat. Make the Google Homepage thing connect better with stuff like Bookmarks.
Google is becoming a huge, s
Works for me (Score:4, Interesting)
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Neglecting the obvious (Score:2)
A million monkeys and a million typewriters (Score:2)
Well Let's Fuckin' Hope So (Score:2)
I read people's blogs. They are great, and I advocate for everyone having at least one. But, why not let us search blogs, specifically, and leave the general search for data that has been 'vetted' in the m
Is google neglecting google browser sync... (Score:2)
Blogger in Draft (Score:2)
Don't click it (Score:3, Informative)
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