An unofficial blog that watches Google's attempts to move your operating system online since 2005. Not affiliated with Google.

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January 29, 2007

Forced Switch to the New Blogger

A message posted by a Blogger employee on Google Groups announces that the time when Blogger users would be forced to switch to the new Blogger has come:
We've been giving you warnings. The signs have been there. Preparations have been made. Now, it's time!

That's right, it's time to embrace the new version of Blogger! Starting today, a small percentage of users who log in to an old Blogger account will be required to move to the new version. This involves moving your current Blogger account to a new or existing Google Account. After the move, you will need to log in to Blogger with your Google Account username, which is always the email address associated with your account. If you're one of the lucky folks who is prompted to move your account over to the new version of Blogger, you'll be able to postpone this process once (and only once) if you *really* need to get a post out of your head or want to say goodbye to the old Blogger. After that, it's time to befriend the new Blogger!

I really don't understand why Blogger team needs to make a big deal out of this switch. When Writely became a part of Google Docs & Spreadsheets, nobody asked Writely users if they want a completely new interface, a new name for the application or the integration with Google Spreadsheets. Google redirected writely.com to docs.google.com and that was all. Blogger could have switched the accounts automatically, as the new version is backwards-compatible and the visible differences aren't significant.

10 comments:

  1. You clearly aren't aware of the utter agony many of us have suffered at the hands of the new blogger. Entire blogs wiped out. Go onto the google groups for blogger to see the havoc. The switch has been a disaster and it's not like the new one solved any of the old problems (downtime, sketchiness of photo uploading, etc.)

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  2. Yes, I'm aware, but they must've been fixed the problems. I switched 3 blogs in about 20 minutes:
    * one with 1300+ posts and around 5000 comments
    * another blog with 3000+ posts
    * a small blog.

    I don't know about downtimes, but I've noticed that pages load more slowly.

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  3. blogger.com loads waaaay slow, actually. Has anyone found a fix for this? Is this a host side problem? A content problem? (mine has unicode fonts and shows blogs full -all of 'em) or something else?

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  4. I'm scared to even attempt it, and am going to sit it out for awhile.

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  5. Wow, great, now that tey MADE me switch, I cannot even LOGIN to access my blogs... Sure, I enter in the correct information (USER/PW) and then it gives me some blank box and NOTHING... ad sometimes, the USER/PW box doesn't even appear... So, ummm now have 4 different blogs that various club members consult - and they can't be updated. THANKS Blogger...

    jeppyboule

    (I can't even login to POST this properly...)

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  6. wow me too. I was also forced to switch. First it said I had only one chance to switch and I took a second to think about it, and then skipped it, wrote one last post (by the way I haven't been posing a lot and it was over a year of my post before this comment) and today right before this comment, was forced to switch... :( I like the old blogger and I HATE GOOGLE stuff besides gmail is JUST OKAY and the Search engine part is GReat, othher stuff sucks.., sure I have an gmail account, what about those without an gmail account.. anyway Google search is fine, and used it to find this...

    By the way I was just about to write a post when I was switched... Talk about MS or anyother Big name companies that are bad, this is worse...:(

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  7. I'm just wondering if others have had a problem with switching over to new blogger with old custom blogger template. I get a noindex nofollow in source and lost all ranking in google. My settings are all correct, know how to do all that, but still get the noindex nofollow. And blogger changes the archive URLS from like 2001_01_01_google_archive.html to 2001_01_01_archive.html, what ever the subdomain of your blog is. Seems like I'm getting dupe content penalty of some sort from google and all pages went supplemental in google index. Now no traffic from anyone but yahoo and msn, and you know how little traffic that is. What a nightmare! Thanks blogger for forcing me to switch! Now I have twenty two more blogs that I can't even touch so they don't get all deindexed. Again, what a nightmare!

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  8. I think Google has become a disgrace and that it has to be stopped.

    (Oh yes - it CAN be done! Whether people will be willing to stick together and actually do something about it, is another matter.)

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  9. I was also forced to switch to a google account. It end up aggravating me so much that I install PHP and MYSQL on my windows 2003 server and am now running my own installation of word press

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  10. The only reason I went with Blogger is because it was easy to use. Now that Google has forced people to switch, it's made it difficult for everybody.

    I can't edit or post anything since the change. And I don't know how to change over.

    If all I have to do is login, it doesn't work. All I see is my old blog. But it does no good if I can't add new post or make updated changes.

    I am now going with to "wordpress".

    www.dream-pursuit.com

    ReplyDelete

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