In Which Blogger Vexes Me, and the Secret Project is Revealed.

Thanks for the comments on New vs. Old Blogger. It's apparent from your feedback that the new version, though officially out of beta, is still more buggy than I'm comfortable with.

It really only came up because of the aforementioned top-secret internet project, which is a group blog, which I'll tell you more about in a second. See, Blogger's group blogs can be either Old Blogger or New Blogger, but not both; if you happen to be using one then you can't participate in the other and vice versa. Also, you can't have an Old Blogger blog and a New Blogger blog at the same time.

While this wouldn't bother most people, it's disastrous if you're trying to start a collaborative blog. Either only Old Blogger users can contribute, and nobody new to Blogger can join (because new users are automatically funneled into New Blogger) -- or only New Blogger users can play, and anyone who wants to join has to upgrade. Because of the number of core contributors who are still happily using Old Blogger, the blog's editor decided to stick with the former option for the time being (a choice I obviously support).

I've been a devoted Blogger fan for six years now, but the way they're handling this whole transition is lame, especially in that some people are already being forced to make the switch. I understand that it's necessary to move everyone over to the new model at some point, but can we at least make sure it all works first?

Anyway, now that I've got my grousing out of the way: The Suggestions is the collaborative blog in question. It was inspired by shopping blogs, but aspires to be something more. Exactly what that something is remains to be seen as it takes shape over time. It's still a little wide-eyed and stumbly; I'm not even sure the RSS feed works properly yet. But you can have a look, if you like.

(My original plan was to include an invitation to potential contributors in this announcement, but that's sort of moot now... unless you're an Old Skool Blogger user. In that case, if this looks like something you'd like to be part of, drop me a line.)