Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Blogger FTP Publishing

As a long-time Blogger.com user, I was definitely disappointed to learn that Blogger's Publish via FTP option was going to be retired. But, being in the technology industry myself, I can understand when antiquated systems must be retired. What I did not expect--but perhaps should have--was the amazing backlash from users.

The general sentiment is that of entitlement. While I agree it is frustrating, and even a bit mis-handled on Google's part, I don't feel any sense of abandonment. Comments are ablaze on Google's blog, and all over the blogosphere for that matter. FTP users are in an uproar, proving decidedly the power of a loud minority (According to Google, FTP users make up less than 5% of their user base... the reason for depreciating this feature).

The blog you're reading right now is indeed published with Blogger, and using their FTP service. So, in the perpetual delay of Blogger's promised migration tool, how have we moved forward? We used a free tool provided by PostTwo.com which seamlessly migrates Blogger FTP publishing into the blogspot.com hosting without requiring CNAME and A-record editing (which I, and many blog authors, do not have access to).

The lesson here is this: (to the vendors) don't under-estimate the effect that alienating even a small minority in your customer-base might have. But, (to the customers) if it's a free service, you get what you pay for.

Labels: Blogger FTP, Google