Fah. I'm sorry, Blogger - I've been loyal to you guys since way back when there was just a handful of you - long before Google showered you in cash and you started promising all sorts of new hotness that never materialised. I still feel comfortable in the Blogger UI, for all its many quirks, although I'm growing increasingly fond of Qumana as an editor. But I think it may be time to think seriously about moving off the Blogger platform, and porting myself over to Marqui.

I'm more than a little conflicted here, I know. I've been a fan and reasonably heavy user of Blogger since March 2001. I've played with other blogging tools, and used them for some of my other blog projects, but I've always come back to Blogger. Looking at my Blogger "dashboard", it lists fourteen different Blogger-based blogs I either own or contribute to - 2,171 posts (not all of them by me, of course). That's a lot of Bloggerage.

(Thinks: there used to be a "stats" widget on your Blogger profile that would tell you how many words you'd written. What the hell happened to that? I remember being all tickled when it topped over 66,000 more than three years ago. Heh. Must be at least twice that now. Feature attrition. Sucks.)

So then, coming up on a year ago I joined the wonderful people at Marqui, software developers who also happen to produce a blogging tool of some note - and one which I love using for our own corporate blog. I've been thinking for a while I really ought to be eating our own dogfood, but I guess I've just been set in my ways here.

Still - I was getting all ready to switch, when all of a sudden this new Blogger upgrade gets announced, with considerable foofaraw. "Ooooh - shiny newness!" I think, getting all giddy at the prospect of some of that Google money finally getting poured into my ol' faithful tool.

Feh. And also Bleh. They just gave me another bloody good reason to move to Marqui and resolve my feeling of conflictedness once and for all.

For the record, here's what happens when a long-time, faithful user of the old Blogger signs in to his account these days.

First, the sign in screen recognizes that I'm already signed into my Google account, which is kinda cool and useful - you'd think:

Yeah, you'd think. But if you can read that text in my squished up image, it's a bit odd. It acknowledges that I'm already signed in, but instead of offering direct and obvious access to my blogs, the only options are to either "Switch now" or "Create your blog now".

Hmmm...

I click on "Switch now", hoping for shiny new hotness, but get this:


OK, so I'm teased and tantalised by the prospect of the new Blogger, so I accept the ToS and click "Continue", only to receive this:


Gah!

First of all - as you already know who I am because I'm already signed in with my Google account - why even bother to offer me a beta I'm not allowed to have?! And, excuse me, but why the hell not? I've stuck with you guys through the outages, the oddities, the scandals, and silliness. I've been plugging away with this thing since your user count was numbered in the low thousands. I'm not typically one to [fluff] like this, but hello? If punters like me don't get the beta, then who exactly does? I'm sorry if I'm not sufficiently A-List for you guys.

Would it help if I tried signing in again wearing my pre-Google Blogger t-shirt and my Blogger hoodie - both of which you gave me for being a loyal early user?

OK, I'm being all twisty and more than a tad childish, I know, but ffs.

I tried taking the other path, btw - tried going through the first step above and then picking "I don't want to switch right now". Guess what? Here's the screen you get if you do that:


...that's the Blogger front page again - with a helpful option at the top to "Sign in to Blogger".

And just take a wild guess what screen you get to if you click that link. Go on, guess.

All together now:

GAH!

So, I guess I'll be talking to the lovely support chaps at Marqui tomorrow after all.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006.
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