Blogger has been out of commission during my regular weblog writing time, so this is not a typical log entry. Instead I want to write a rant about how Google, being a search services company, should understand how to run a software service like Blogger, but I’m not sure how vicious I want to be about it. The Pyra idea is that they are busy moving things to new servers and improving the service. But, as a paying Blogger Pro customer, I have had to deal with continued outages, minimal communication about such outages, and loss of SSL login capability. Running a software service is difficult; I work for such a company myself. You have customers wanting 99.99% reliability while you struggle with resource allocation, growing server CPU and disk space needs, and security concerns. But it is possible to create procedures to guarantee excellent uptime. If Google were down for even an hour, you’d hear about it. If Blogger wants to grow to the point where it’s newsworthy that it is down for an hour, they’ll need to get their service in better shape. Are any Google veterans even helping the Blogger team out with understanding how a well-run software service should function and how it is possible, with the new resources of Google, to use staging servers and quality assurance procedures to test everything out before it goes live? Based on recent experience, when my “pro” subscription runs out, I am going to seriously consider alternatives. I am trying to be understanding, and I was very forgiving when I knew Pyra did not have the resources for support, but it’s a fact that now that I know they have Google behind them, I am expecting more. Much more. They must live up to the Google name and reputation.