Google bought Pyra labs, makers of Blogger.
From Dan Gillmor:
Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time
Weblogs are going Googling.
Google, which runs the Web's premier search site, has purchased Pyra Labs, a San Francisco company that created some of the earliest technology for writing weblogs, the increasingly popular personal and opinion journals.
...
For Williams and his five co-workers, now Google employees, the immediate impact will be to put their blog-hosting service, called Blog*Spot, on the vast network of server computers Google operates. This will make the service more reliable and robust.
How Google manages the Blogger software and Pyra's hosting service may present some tricky issues. The search side of Google indexes weblogs from all of the major blogging platforms, including Movable Type and Userland Radio. Any hint of proprietary favoritism would meet harsh criticism.
Hopefully Blogger's quality of service will improve, and perhaps blogging will be introduced to a wider audience.
Re: Blogger acquired
Just a little public service announcment--Blogger has lost weeks of my archives. I'm trying to decide if I want to keep my blog or not. The other day, I was writing a paper and wanted to access a certain post I had written about the reading in the class, and it was GONE. I don't really want to keep it if I can't get posts when I need them.
:-(
Re: Blogger acquired
what a bummer! I think this will accelerate my search for a decent offline Mac OS X blogging tool with archiving capabilities.
Re: Blogger acquired
I use greymatter, and so far so good. It's easy to install if you have cgi access on your school server and know how to change permissions. And it's free.
Re: Blogger acquired
I've thought about this, but I'd rather have my own domain than store stuff on my school's server, which is not a permanent space for me...but would it be pretty easy to move the files after I leave here?
Re: Blogger acquired
You can always get your own domain. Prices aren't really that high and most hosts are 8 bucks or less a month.
And yes, it would be easy to move files when you leave anyway.
Re: Blogger has lost weeks of my archives
i've heard others complain about that after changing a blogger template.
Re: Blogger acquired
Clancy: try republishing your archives and see if that works. It may not be lost.
Re: Blogger acquired
I've been working on an article... here's a chunk of thoughts to chew on:
For all intents and purposes, Google owns the Web, by virtue of its superior and highly popular search engine. It also owns the history of the Internet, thanks to GoogleGroups, which searches over 20 years of Usenet archives. It owns the present, thanks to GoogleNews, which continually scans the front pages of thousands of online newspapers, deduces which stories editors around the world consider to be the most important, and snags the headlines and lead paragraphs from those sentences to assemble a patchwork quilt that exposes news readers to a wide variety of editorial and political opinions. Will GoogleBlogs somehow cross the line? Can Google be fair to blogs hosted by its competitors? Has the Google Galaxy brought an end to the Golden Age of blogging?
Re: Blogger acquired
I'll add a thought. Will they follow the Google coporate conduct code: Don't be evil (see Wired's Google vs . Evil).
Re: Blogger acquired
Hey, Mark, I went into my Edit Your Blog page and went to archives, clicked "Republish All," and it did. But the archives still aren't available on my site. Bugger! I can access them in the Edit Your Blog site, though, but sheesh, that's quite a flaw, isn't it?
Re: Blogger acquired
Have you specified where you want the archives placed on your server, created the directory, set the permissions, and double-checked the path? Send me a screen capture of your blog settings.