Dam, I am an "old- timer."
This is my second post regarding a change in Blogster.
It has been about 3 years.
Maybe the Blogster Team could help me out with this, but I believe the first change happened in 2005?
(I'm too lazy to look back in my past posts to find out.) Besides, new Blogster would probably "lock-up" my computer if I tried.
So.. Anyway..
The original operator of Blogster was a fellow named Arthur. He called himself "CB." (Chief Blogster.)
He was kind of a laid back fellow that had an "anything goes" attitude.
People were swearing in the comment sections. Folks were putting dirty pictures in with their comments.
Some of the "famous" Blogster fights were quite scary. People-who were friends and learned personal information about each other, would become enemies and threaten each other during a fight by exposing this learned personal information.
It was bad..
When Blogster was sold, much of that changed. Blogster was cleaned up.
I am seeing now, what I saw then…
People threatening to leave Blogster.
Back then..
People were fighting for the RIGHT to use profanity in the comment section. They wanted the ability to place dirty pictures into your comment section.
I thought this was an odd thing to fight for..??
You do not own your blog.
However, you are invited to use the system.
If you go to someone's house, you would have to follow the rules of the house, or they will throw you out.
Many people left Blogster in 2005 because they felt that their freedom was taken away.
The freedom to swear and use naked pictures..??
(I'm not sure where these people went to regain their freedom to use profanity because MySpace, Facebook, and others have similar rules?)
Today…
People are angry because the owners have added a "super server system" (that can leap tall buildings) and they do not have it perfected yet.
I have seen the posts demanding that Blogster return to the old system.
I have seen the threats that people "will leave if something isn't done."
But I return to my old line..
This is someone's house and we are invited in. If we do not like the place, we can leave.
Taking things for granted..
I still remember what it was like BEFORE the blog systems came around.
You had to pay for your web site. You had a "dot com" address and you had nobody to talk to because there wasn't a list of friends. You spent 15 minutes doing a post and the rest of the day searching the Internet for someone to talk to.
And that was the way it was because there were only a few thousand of us and we were scattered all over the place.
Today, by paying nothing, I can have video on my site. I can have poll questions. I can have music. And a virtual "unlimited amount" of computer memory. (I write some long-ass posts and I have never seen a limit.)
Folks, I can't even imagine what the cost would have been to add that stuff BEFORE the blog systems came around.
So I am very grateful to these systems for the service they provide. I hope they make money in advertising because I would hate to see the Internet return to the old days of a "pay to print" system.
Here is what I know..
The original Blogster. (The 2005 system) Was nothing more than a glorified chat room that had the ability to remember and store conversations.
The last owners came around and placed a system that made Blogster- a true blog system.
So I trust these people's judgement. They are not idiots.
I am sure they invested a lot of money into this new server system and are looking ahead into the future.
It is sad to see people go. I cannot tell you how many people I have met, who no longer post here on Blogster.
I know some people probably feel that they are "revolutionaries" in taking a stand and threatening to leave Blogster.
But it is important to remember that revolutionaries do not leave, or runaway.
True revolutionaries stay and fight. They work with the world that they have been given and they make it better.
So, once again, I feel bad for the owners of Blogster. We, the collection of ungrateful, spend all our time bitching about a system that we have invested nothing but time. Not one penny.
So I will am willing to give Team Blogster all the time they need to improve this blog system.
Besides, I kind of like the fact that I do not have to use html code just to place a freaking video here.
Good Luck Team Blogster..!!
15 comments on The New Blogster
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Very, very good post AR!! I have been around going on three years myself. It will be three years in June. Chief blogster was the first and then he sold it to Eddie (Blog) and Tony (I can't remember his blog name) that was in I believe September of 2005 or October. Yes I do remember the the fights and the awful fighting and the nasty pictures. I do remember several left. Eddie and Tony made some really neat changes and things were going better and then they sold to the current owners in March of 2007. There have been ups and downs but, hopefully like I have been saying just ride this out and have some patience and things will fall into place.
Jenn
That is something else Joe. I hope that the ones that lost their posts will have them put back. That is just very wrong for them to dissappear like that.
I wanted to say that you have one thing wrong. We do own our blogs. Blogster owns the site. We own our blogs the blog are what we write. Blog services come and go, many of them, if you follow the internet at all only the ones who are good to their bloggers succeed. With out your words, my words, his words and her words social networking sites fail. We are their content. We make blogster. Without the people who write here there is no blogster.
I think it was a very bad example of site/user relations for the powers that be to say “leave” because guess what, they are. Weather you like those people or not it still makes blogster less of a community. I hate seeing that happen.
To expect this blog service to be as good or better is NOT taking things for granted it is the forward movement of technology and these things are offered other places and work better. Everyday a new social networking site fails. I do think the owners want this to be a “better” place unfortunately they are ostracizing very good bloggers in the process.
I am like you. I plan to stay but on a very minimal basis until it is fixed and am blogging on another site that is a new and improved version of blogster. I do have faith they will make blogster what they want it to be and on the same note I can understand Mr.Wold’s anger at people being unhappy because this is his”baby” and it would be the same feeling if someone said his newborn were ugly, however, those feelings need to be kept internal then once he is finished with his work he can bask in the high fives he gets for his work.
My husband is even leaving blogster which was a bit of a division for us but hey we are both blogging together still at a new blogsite I found by accident.
I am to tenacious to leave not to mention I am way nosey I have to see how this all turns out.
Dear Mmmhollywould,
I appreciate your comments. For clarification, and I appreciate you pointing out the potential for confusion, I am just one of the lead developers of Blogster, not the owner.
Also, I apologize for anything that may have been interpreted as anger. Far from it, we have all really appreciated the feedback, both positive and negative, that all of you have provided.
Thanks for your input :).
Jonathan Wold
Blogster Development Team
I have not yet decided whether to stay or leave Blogster. The new system will require much learning about new methods as well as straightening my buddies and other things that were erroneously changed in my profile. For now, the few viewers that my posts seem to attract doesn't make the effort seem worthwhile. One thing I really miss are the great emoticons such as 'thumbs up' that are now gone.
Hello All, This is Tony, President of the company that owns blogster.com. We are doing everything we can to help. The 1st crew we hired from Seattle didn't work out and put us 6 months behind and I won't mention the money wasted. The 2nd crew lead by Nick and Jonathan is doing a really good job.
If there is something that you want added as far as features, like the "thumbs up" we can do that. Just ask.
We are going to put in another 6 months of development into blogster and we need your help for features.
Blogster.com is the most imporant project that we are working on, we have top websites in datingtips.com, freediets.com, gadget.com and many others.
If you have questions you can post on my blog, domainnames.blogster.com and I will try to answer everyone.
It's the old story ,,,, WHY FIX what's not broke , the old system was working just fine , NOW you have lost 4500 post of mine I had over 130,000 visitorsand was in the TOP 10 bloggers for a very long time and number 1 over 6 months and it was all wiped away in the blink of an eye , and you wonder why I would be upset ?????
I didn't know the place was sold and had new owners..??
Sorry.
I have changed the post above to be correct.
AR, and Domainnames,
I have been using Blogster for over two years now, I had a great time. I remember the change from the first owner to the new owner, I remember the changes, the fights, everything AR said.
One of my favorite bloggers left for a different site. Just out of curiosity I followed and set up a site to see what else was out there. The site was great for the right people. I was not one of the right people. It was a site for artistic people. Poets, writers artists. I was called on it from the beginning. My blog only lasted there for two days.
I started my blog at Blogster to write down my experiences in Vietnam. I did that and didn't expect any further writing. But I met some great people and now consider them my friends even though I have never met any of them in person.
When I had problems with my Reply button it was suggested to switch to firefox. I did, and it works. I also found out I like firefox much better than Internet Explorer.
The pictures work, and I have not had any difficulty changing over to the new site. I will go to domainnames blog to make my few suggestions, and feel confident that they will be taken into consideration.
Thanks for all the hard work and $$$ spent on blogster.
Bob AKA Saito56 Bob's Diner.
Well..
I was able to reply to comments with my Internet accessible cell phone.
I seem to have lost that ability, because I replied to several of the comments above and it didn't work. It acts like it is working, but nothing shows up. Also, I wanted to edit part of this post and the computer locked up.
Not to mention the fact that I was trying to secure an interview with Mitt Romney here on Blogster. I gave out the web address- and guess what..??
It happened to be right when Blogster shut down. So, I do not know if Romney checked out the place and received the- "Blogster- out of service" message.
Who knows..??
I will try again but the guy is kind of busy right now.
This stuff pisses me off, but I have stayed at Blogster for 3 years for a reason. I like the place.
I gave up worrying about my visitor count long time ago. Being a part-time blogger, I will never keep up with people who do not work or can blog from their office computer.
I will just wait it out and see…
I noticed the visitors count is not working as well, we are going to address these issues, we still have all the old entries and posts and we will get them back, even one user at a time. What ever it takes.
We are in this for the long haul, this is not a short term investment.
Hillary has proven her shamleful character with her bid for the presidency.
CLINTON WAS IMPEACHED!!!
Clinton Accused of 1978 Hotel Rape, Clinton Murders video in my blog.