Caught Up

Going through and seeing how many blogs had missing pictures was annoying to say the least. Being the type of person that prefers to have a plan B, the grey matter was put to work. So, I made a copy of the entire blog. Every single post. Just in case. 

I used Opera's blog for a long time. I loved it! All these years later I still miss it. Granted at that point, blogging in this format was really at its apex. Before video took over everything. One of my regrets was not copying everything before they took it down. That won't happen again. 

After all this is on a Google owned site. And we all know we can't trust them not to just trash it at a moment's notice. Or worse, try to revamp it. Look what happened to Google Music. A wonderful service that was absolutely trashed when it was forced into YouTube Music. Years later, and still not at the same level. Or the more recent sale of Domains to another service. At least it wasn't to GoDaddy, but I have my doubts as to how well that service will work for my needs as well.

I've been a pro-google guy for a long time. However, I'm finding that in question more and more these days. It may be time for a change. A new season of life is coming. 

Archive what?

 As I'm know many others have gotten the same, I received that email about Google Album Archive being shuttered. I was like, "ok, so what?" I don't recall ever using it. But just in case, I took a look just to make sure. You know what was there? Every photo posted to this blog! And only the photo's I've used in it!

That's right, every single one of them looking me square in the eye! So I took a look at the blog and found that going back to my oldest posts that the pictures don't load! Now there could be a number of reasons. But it's a bit alarming. Does this mean that when that service gets shuttered next month that all of the pics in the blog will go away too? I don't believe in coincidence. 

On the bright side, it's not the only place I have them. Those are just copies. Have you looked to see what's in yours?

Bitter Sweet Goodbye

This actually ties in a bit to a previous blog post I put up about unplugging. So I deactivated my Facebook profile the other day. For the most part I haven't really had an interest in turning it back on this time. There's some urge to go there here and there, but I attribute that to having it for so long. I turned off the ol FB and suddenly there's less drama, and less whining to see.

I'm actually thinking about doing the same with my Twitter account. Other than posting links to my blog, and the occasional news post I find interesting, I don't use it for anything. There's a lot of whining there too. Other than a source to promote my blog, it's really nothing. Most things I read there are MMA related. And any legitimate news on that come across a 100 other media channels as well. So I wouldn't really lose anything.

To say I've lost anything would be a lie too. Since turning off FB I've noticed a significant drop in my blog viewer-ship. And by significant, I can say well over a hundred hits a month are gone. I can easily attribute this to the fact that I share links to each new post there, so many people don't have to actually subscribe to my blog. Instead they see a new post to let them know right there. Plus, I've found that Facebooker's are a lot more likely to share these posts. For Google supposedly being the best place for that sort of thing, I certainly don't see it. For that matter, I don't think anyone has ever come across my blog through Google. Instead it's because they're in one of my circle's (usually, not always), or they belong to a group that I'm in and share my posts with as well. This is definitely an area that I've found Google to fall flat on it's face with. I have seen more traffic from Technorati, and even that isn't much. So by leaving FB off, I'll have to come to grips with the fact that I'll be losing a vast sea in which I can promote myself. But that's one heck of a change, and it'll be much harder to build those numbers back up. It is doable though.

So with this I offer some advise to other bloggers. If you see a blog you like that's by anyone, not just me, share it on your various venues. Keep in mind, many of us have public blogs and want people to read and share it. In my case, if I have something up that you'd like me to revisit, for updates, or just a continuation, don't hesitate to let me know.

I'm done with my little rant now.