I know this. It’s why I left blogger for a self-hosted WordPress blog over a year ago, but you’d like to think that seeing people leave them would inspire Google to greater heights. Nothing would have pleased me more than to see Blogger become a great option for bloggers and to make me eat my words, but alas they do nothing but validate my decision.

Recently Blogger decided to remove the ability for those that comment on blogs they host to link back to their own blogs. What galls me about this is the total ignorance of what blogging is about. One of the best things about what blogs have done to the Internet is how encourages community, sharing with your peers, to circumvent the structure that we’re so often asked to adhere to for no good reason. It redefines what we call a friend. I had three people at my wedding whom the relationship we have was built primarily through blog comments.

What further galls me is that this change was unannounced, and with all the controversy, there seems to be no response from Google.   I talk about poor customer service all the time, but it seems   no one gets it. The #1 key to keeping your customers is to talk to them.   This change happened at least 11 days ago and nothing.

Apparently Blogger is planning a move to a different system called Open ID at some point, but there are no details of when, does it matter? People need to move off of this system or demand more. If you just look around the web you’ll see that this is raising a big stink (I’ve added some links below). What do I suggest? I moved my blog off of blogger over a year ago and have nothing but good things to say about WordPress. They offer their blogging software for free for self-hosting or you can have WordPress host it. If you don’t like how something works in WordPress, it’s easy to change it. Plus they have a built in tool for moving blogs from blogger. That’s my first thought – otherwise people need to tell Google they’re wrong for doing this.

More on this:

Suburban Oblivion – Blogger.com No Longer Allows Links to Non-Blogger Sites in Comments

Matts Nutts SEO and Blogging – Google Lets Down The Bloggers

What’s Wrong Around Us? – When Brilliant Men Have Dumb Ideas  

PENSIEVE – Blogger Backlash   (ooh – talk of boycotting commenting on blogger hosted blogs)

The Junk Drawer – More About New Blogger Comment System  

Blogcatalog – Blogger blogs URL feature disabled  

This is temporary theme. Working on the new one.

This is it baby! Get to use my own picture above. Let me know your thoughts.

I tried the other design – and I liked the way it looked, but it was too hard for me to modify, and me not being a programmer – that’s important. So welcome to the new look – everything is pretty much where it was before – just with new underpinnings.

Well spent most of the night putzing around with the site. Please let me know how it works for you, do you like it, hate it, etc.

If it doesn’t work – tell me what browser you have and what operating system.

I’ve decided for the last month of the year, that I will focus more light things – music, TV, etc.   This makes sense since it’s about time we start talking the best of lists and such.   I’m also a little tired of the news focus recently – so depressing.

And honestly we need another blog talking about Brittany Spears’ cooch today?   I think not.

I’m also planning to update the look of the site.   Want something a little more flexible and with more space.

Say that three times fast.

A favorite blog of mine, I’ve Made a Huge Tiny Mistake is the new featured blog over at Philly Future. Chris writes a lot about Philly sports and Boy Meets World (I kid you not).

Congrats.

BTW – if you’re a Philadelphia blogger – you should join the community over at Philly Future; it’s a great way to build the community and find readers for your work.