March 08, 2005

Blogger bloggers are also rans.

Tony Pierce has a great post on the LA Times article that positions Blogger as sloppy seconds to Moveable Type.

In Tony's comments, I take exception with what Anil says about "free" services like Blogger. Anil, WTF?
Nearly all of the people on free services like Blogger and LiveJournal are writing for an audience of their family and friends. You can't lament that they don't get attention and then be unwilling to actually *read* the sites and understand what those bloggers are trying to do. You (and I) are driven by ego or a desire for lots of readers, but most people aren't.

Blogger.com bloggers writing for family and friends? That's a rather narrow take on a big part of the blogosphere. I'm glad that most of my family doesn't know about this blog. But 60,000 Google hits related to it tells me that some folks online like reading it.

Anil, that was a dumbass statement. Maybe even irresponsible. I've been on blogger since 2001. I liked it at first because it was easy. Now, I like it because it's where I happen to live. Might I move someday? Yes, but it would only be out of frustration over how slow the interface has gotten.

Rageboy's on Blogger. His Chief Blogging Officer weblog is on blogger (and looks better than most MT blogs I've seen). Halley's on blogger. I'm on blogger. Lots of smart people writing for more than their kin are on blogger. Some are even hosted on blogspot.

You pulled that statement out of your ass. It belongs back inside.