Via Ev (who’s pumping out a resolute ‘no comment’ on the whole Premium Blogger thing) comes this neat and well assembled Flash-based clock. I’m always extremely impressed when people manage to incorporate a non-computery aesthetic into sites – it’s not as easy as it seems.
It’s a shame, but it seems that there will be no Anti-Bloggies this year.
Of course the best thing about working from home is that you don’t have to go outside. And correspondingly the worst thing about it is that most of your stories involve particularly sticky patches on the kitchen floor, the number of cigarettes you’ve smoked in a day and how you’re duvet has got stuck down one end of its cover (even though that doesn’t matter because you move so little and drink so much caffeine that you no longer need to sleep).
Now that someone has actually broken the news on a site (rather than just on a mailing list), I think it’s time I gave my opinion on the proposed “Premium Blogger” that is rumoured to cost $30 a year. Bear in mind that at the time of posting, there has been no word from Pyra on this app. There’s a discussion over at Metafilter, but here’s my take on it as posted to UKBloggers:
“The big question then is going to be do you have any idea about how this premium stuff is going to work? I had a long conversation with megnut when she was still with blogger about what their plans were with Blogger Pro – which this sounds very much like – and the big issue seemed to be what you’re getting people to pay for… For example – are you paying for a premium membership with as many blogs as you like? In which case how do you stop people disseminating the log-in details to run a hundred blogs from the same account? If you ARE running a premium blog – do other people who are allowed to post on the same blog have to pay to use it? Is there a difference between a user who runs fifty blogs each with a thousand posters on each and one who runs one weblog which he posts to every month. Etc. etc.
“There are many more questions – particularly for people whose sites consist of several blogs bolted together…
“I’d pay in an instant. Particularly for extra functionality. But I’m interested in what the service will include. I think there are various ways they could go… five blogs perhaps with a maximum of twenty users between them (for example) would be a good system as far as I was concerned. But there WILL be consolidation of individuals using them.
“Having said that it’s still better to have three users paying $10 each than three users paying nothing…”
Want to know what was really going on in the Lord of the Rings? Then read the many secret diaries of the various participants…
I’ve suddenly started getting lots of traffic and I don’t quite know why. If you’ve seen plasticbag.org in a magazine or a newspaper or anywhere unusual in an article or something, could you let me know. Thanks.
My flatmate is buying an iBook. Just to tease me, you understand. I went into town with her today to decide what she needs. Sigh.
There’s going to be an announcement tomorrow regarding Blogger. Could it be that we’re finally going to have to pay for the damn thing? Could it be that there’ll be some kind of increased functionality? Could it be that Ev has found a business partner who’s going to splash millions of dollars in his lap to make the service horrifically amazing?
Looks to me like Wil‘s onto a winner. He’s selling personally autographed Next Generation stuff at the moment – and seems to be making a fair amount of money on it. Poor old Wil. Forever labelled by a character he played in an old sci-fi series.
Speaking of which, he was in the episode of Next Generation that I watched this evening on BBC2. The lines they gave that man must have been enough to drive a young man to suicide. His character was the lamest creature in fifteen star systems. Is it surprising that everyone hated him? Tonight some female character commented something along the lines of, “It’s just as well you’re cute, Wesley, otherwise you’d be insufferable”. If I found him cute I’d be some kinda pervert. So I’m left agreeing with her other sentiments alone. I keep thinking that maybe an older actor might have been able to play these lines in a less annoying way – but I’m not sure it’s possible. If you had Wesley for a child, you’d be continually encouraging him to act up. You’d be begging for it. You’d be going, “you want to have sex with a prostitute, son?” or, “Daddy’s got some heroin…!”