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Google Helps Offer Blogger Pro For Free
Khazunga writes "News.com is reporting that the Google-owned Pyra are releasing the formerly-$35/year Blogger Pro weblog service for free. This is backed up by an announcement from Evan Williams at the Blogger Pro site, as well as a list of the newly free Blogger features. It's the dot-com frenzy all over again! Free services with no business plan... run for your lives!"
I suppose google can afford to offer such serivices for free. Just look at google groups. But I won't be very surprised to see context specific ads on the blogs as well. The strategy google is following is targeted advertising. So if some blogger writes about say IBM Vs SCO, you can expect to see an ad of some Linux solution on top of that blog (Or worse, an MS ad saying you won't have any IP problems with MS). I think its a good idea because like search engine, you know who your target customer is for blogs. So there is indeed a business plan behind this.
What's under yellowstone?
We also get to listen to middle-aged women who do the blog thing bitch. Woo!
No. The reality is;
1. Profit
2. ???
3. Release formerly profitable software for free
less is more
Random, haphazard thoughts on this...
...Slashdot... as prototypical examples), everyone could just be named a variant of joe13234, and it would make no functional difference. Some people (lawyers, politicians, analysts, etc.) are essentially paid for their comments, and a weblog can be seen as an extension of their work that provides a meaningful tieback to themselves.
It'd be really nice to have some kind of comparison list for various blog sites out there. I note from the blogger.com information, that they're still not making RSS part of the free service level, something which (ahem) LiveJournal offers on their free accounts.
I wonder if blogger.com has a client app... Semagic will autocreate your HTML and other handy stuff (including spellcheck) to make posting as easy as sending an instant message.
They also have friends lists, communities, and a bunch of stuff I haven't had time to check out.
Which brings up a core question... why have the blog format at all? In a lot of cases, it seems to just be a higher-tech version of rants written in a personal journal (as browsing some of them indicates), but I think eventually widespread adoption will happen simply because people will want some some way to tie their writing back to themselves. For most community sites/systems (Usenet, IRC,
On the dot-com thing... it seems like everything on the net, private IP or not, is being forced into a shareware model, in effect. Some fraction of the public using a system will toss a few bucks in the direction of the provider, and IMHO people will need to realize that they need to do this occasionally or we'll end up with extremely high-bandwidth connections to nothing. Even if you don't pay for everything, paying for something, even semi-randomly, helps keep the wheels of the net turning.
I now submit my comment to the traditional, ritual Slashdot assault.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Reminds me of the story I heard about a company that wanted a site developed called News Exchange. The domain name they wanted? newsexchange.com.au
The developers made the company realise the folly of the plan by making the title of the site "NewS exChange"
If you take a tour on their site you will find out that they do make money - its not that obvious like on any other banner/pop exploded site, but they put small ads here and there, they offer PRO services for businesses where they sell servers and services... They make money without annoying the surfers and its very rare thing to find on the net.
Dont just mail it - Maileet
I think Google, being in the unique position of controlling what most people see on the web, sees anything that improves the web in general as improving their service. In particular, blogs are a great source of links to popular and useful sites for Google's PageRank algorithm to work with. That means more accurate and relevant Google results. As crazy as it sounds, this may just be a move by Google to try and make blogging more popular, because it has the side effect of improving their service. Also, blogging involves people in the web community, where they will inevitably come to rely on Google as we all do.
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Even with spell checking, it will bee easy too tell who knows how to spell correctly, who van avoid making typos, whom knows how to use grammar correct, and who can avoid using, improper punctuation.
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
a review from a blog called Sopsy Digest shows up 15 notches higher than an article from Business Week.
Maybe that's because the Sopsy's Digest review was better than the Business Week review.
I've heard this argument before, but IMHO it just boils down to journalists whining that "amateurs" are scoring higher on Google than they are.
But it is, in part, precisely this egalitarian, anyone-can-get-exposure nature of the Web that makes it so cool. If you don't like it, stick to the print media.
evil math within Nature's Cubic Creation!