Back on January 22nd, Google notified its Blogger users that effective March 26th, support for publishing via FTP would be discontinued. This announcement prompted at least one individual who relied on this feature to switch from Blogger to WordPress. However, the journey from one platform to another presented some obstacles. Kent Newsome has published a six part series that describes the trials and tribulations of the move including export/import, file size limitations, retaining the URL structure, theme hacking, and more. Congrats to Kent for having a successful move and welcome to the WordPress community.
Unless Google is pushing for some Premium package of Blogger with FTP, that’s just rudeness…
Google only has itself to blame when everyone realizes how great WP is and make the move over. Haha!
Wouldn’t surprise me if Google will push for a premium package.
Congratulations Kent, you have joined the happy side, where the grass is greener there is no doubt!
Just move to WordPress … it’s better anyway. And the move is so easy, I don’t see any reasons not to do it 😉
Welcome to WordPress Kent! You’ll never regret it because there are lots of support available. That’s a very helpful six part series you have there too. Congrats too for the successful move.
Not sure what Google’s reasoning is. Back in ’99 when Pyra Labs created Blogger they offered a premium version. When Google bought them out in ’03 they eliminated it and offered everything for free.
Greed.
Way back when I began my adventure in this here world wide web, Tripod hosted my site. They offered both free and premium services back then. Then Lycos bought them. First they eliminated the premium services, then — a year or so later — brought them back. Shortly thereafter they started loading up their free services with ads and pop-ups in an effort to “encourage” their customers to use the premium services.
I’m thinking Google is following that model. They better be careful, though. If my intel is correct, Lycos (whose HQ is only 20 minutes away from me) ain’t doing so well.
P.S. If I recall correctly Lycos also started out as a search engine.
I guess if i had anything to say here it would be, move either way. WordPress really is the only blogging platform you need…
Google does some really good things for the internet but then goes and make changes that lose it customers. If one person leaves then surely you’re not going to be alone and other people will be off too. I agree that a premium product could offer this service but I’m a wordpress user and am happy to stick with them!
Does anyone see a day when Google decide to try and buy up wordpress?
Blogger never stood first choice when there was already wordpress. Its only the free custom domain support that is sticking me with blogger. I think, its better to brave once than to regret every moment.
Nicely shared information with step by step guides given for migration from blogger to wordpress. I wish I could find this 3 years ago when one my personal blog that gained PR3, I deleted it because I want to concentrate on wordpress. Ouch!