Good news and bad news online

The good news is, Facebook has changed it’s mind about that stupid “beacon” thing that I ranted about last week, where they broadcast your online purchases in your Facebook news feed. You now have to opt IN to the service, which is totally the way it should be, instead of making users go to the trouble of opting out. Bravo Facebook, I guess I won’t be quitting just yet…

The bad news is, Blogger sucks! Did you notice that as of late last week, you can no longer leave your non-blogger.com URL in any comment you leave on blogspot blogs? If you don’t have a Blogger account, you can only leave your “nickname” with no link back to your blog. How lame is that? I find all sorts of great new blogs by surfing the blogs of people who comment on other blogs. I looked for documentation about this all through Blogger’s site and couldn’t find any reference to why they would do this.

There are workarounds, of course. You can open a Google account and display your URL prominently in the Blogger profile, or just add your blog name as an href tag in the comment itself. Since they haven’t promoted this as some sort of new spam-reduction service, I can only imagine that they’re doing this to prop up the registration for Google accounts. Makes me even more happy with my decision to dump my Blogger blog. My Gmail account may be next, at this rate.

Shame on Google!

Related posts (automatically generated):

1. Why I’m thinking of quitting Facebook A not-so-hypothetical situation: It’s the Christmas season, and you’re doing a little bit of online shopping. You click over to Amazon, or eBay, or another one of 40 or so sites, and make your purchase. And the next thing you know, all of your “friends” on Facebook get an update...
2. More thoughts on keeping kids safe online Now that my boys are five and (almost) seven and are regular users of the computer and the Internet, I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about online safety. Conveniently, I’ve also been offered a couple of blog tours lately that touch on the same subject. A couple of...
3. International delurking week Hey you! Yes, you! The one who sashays over here, checks out what’s new, and leaves without a peep. I’m talking to YOU! I see you visiting, you know. I wonder who you are, and why you visit, and whether you like what you are reading. I wonder why you...
4. Saving the best for last: Photography Q&A at Canadian Family I was a little stumped as to how to wrap up my week of guest posts over at the Family Jewels blog on Canadian Family’s site. I’d managed on each of the previous four posts to stay more or less on theme with a particular facet of photography, but had...
5. The State of the Mom Blogosphere Sorry, I still don’t have time for a proper blog post today, but I received this from my old friends Cooper and Emily at the Motherhood and thought you might be interested: You’re invited to join a live chat on “The State of the Mom Blogosphere,” hosted by some of...