Is this simply extreme "federalism" in Google? Do they want to let each part explore for itself? Have they decided that, strategically, blog-hosting isn't something important to them? (Blogs elsewhere host AdSense.) Have they essentially decided to allow Blogger to atrophy and die? Are there no, actual, people at Google who really get (or have ideas for) blogging?and Dave Winer's response:
They're fighting the tough battle, and not doing the fun stuff, adding features that make real users happy. It's kind of frozen in time. And it's not helping the blogging tools market develop, having a big free competitor in the middle of the market, removed the incentive for others to invest in new features.Econ 101 notwithstanding, (I would think that a big free competitor would actually prompt innovation amongst pay services, so that they have something unique to offer the customer?) the splog war is sucking resources from the Blogger platform, but there are also missed opportunities for a more dynamic and integrated service going begging, & there's lots of "market research" out there (much of it discussed here or listed on the Blogger Hacks Wiki) about the features that users are looking for. I'm interested to see what's coming, as discussed by Aditya at The Last Word, and it should be obvious that I'm a big fan of the service and the format. Some upgrades would be great, although I don't want Blogger to put us out of business...just prod us to modify and innovate at a higher level!
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