Anybody who’s visited Blogger recently might have noticed that you can no longer leave your URL behind unless you’re on Blogger too. Fine doings from a company that famously promised to do no evil when it first floated its shares in the market. Of course, that was before it made several billions.
Half the people I love to read are currently hosted on Blogger, so it annoys me even further to realize that Blogger is using the talents of people I admire to make me participate in my own exclusion. Thus far, I haven’t boycotted the blogs I read as Ruhi suggests but it’s a classic Catch 22: do I withdraw from these blogs for no fault of their own or do I continue to interact and let Blogger get away with its strongarm tactics?
Look, I don’t like leaving anonymous comments. Other people are free to do so, but I don’t like it for myself. Sometimes, for example, I don’t agree with a certain post and if I say so, I’d like them to have an opportunity to see me in my own element and get back to me if they so wish. Nicknames are very cute but mean squat unless you’re a regular on that site. And I don’t like to end my comments on other blogs as “Amrita (IndieQuill)” like it’s official in some way. Again, I don’t have any problems with people who sign off that way, that’s their style. It just isn’t mine and I see no reason why I should let Blogger’s greed for the top spot make changes in how I function.
So right now, I’m stymied. But if you’re on Blogger, then you might want to write about this coz they’re basically fucking around with your readership. And considering you’re their biggest draw (especially if you’re an AdSense enabled blog coz then they’re even making money off your work), you might want to put up a post about this.
You guys have done a million tags, so why not do this? Stick it to the man! Tagging all those I know on Blogger. Credit for above badge goes to Ruhi. Please leave a trackback to her post if you decide to take this up, so she can add your name to the list.
Update:- “OpenID commenting is now available for all Blogger blogs. This means that your friends and readers can leave authenticated comments on your blog using their blog URLs from OpenID-enabled services such as WordPress.com, LiveJournal, and AOL Journals, or with their AOL/AIM accounts.”
Thank you to all those who wrote about this issue and those who brought the above info to my attention (that means you – Abi, Dinsan and Extempore). I tried it out and while the linked comment immediately showed up in the comment box, the post itself still showed “0 comments”. I then tried again on another blog and this time I clicked the button marked “Yes, trust this site always” instead of the more cautious “Just this once” and voila! Everything was linkalicious once more in the blogosphere.
