Tuesday, September 30, 2008

And the spit hits the fan...

   AOL today announced they are "sunsetting" several products, including AOL Blogs/Journals. As of October 31, 2008, every AOL Blog will disappear. They claim they will be offering a way of automatically migrating our blogs to another blogging platform, but you know me; I'm skeptical. So, I'll be spending every spare minute over the next few weeks backing up Aurora Walking Vacation to my home computer, so when the migration plan either doesn't materialise, or doesn't work, I won't have lost anything.
   I already have a blogger.com blog set up for AWV. I've never posted in it, but I created it way back when the banner ads bruhaha erupted. So for all three of you regular readers, never fear, AWV will go on.

   More details as they are available.

edit 2:28 PM: I have been told that International AOL Journals and Blogs users may not be in the loop regarding information about the plan to migrate to another platform. According to my information, a plan is already in place, the new platform will be blogger.com, and even though we lowly non-Americans will not be kept abreast of developments, the migration system will work for all AOL journals. So, if you are an International AOL user, keep your eyes on the people connection blog for instructions for all US users, and remember that we can use those same instructions for our journals. This in no way mitigates my strong recommendation that we all take pains to back up our blogs long before the end of the month.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm trying to figure out whether or not I want to go back and back up every entry on my AOL Journal, or whether or not I just want them to fizzle into the ether.  

Weird that they would just can this product.  

-Dan

Anonymous said...

I'm with Dan--it is weird. I think I'm going to let the Mad Secretary die a quiet death though. I can't handle the tedium of backing up those posts. I promise to subscribe to your new feed.

Anonymous said...

Dear Paul,
I'm amazed ....
Paul will Aol move us to blogger? or do we have to do it?
hugs,natalie
p.s.
Please answer this soon! thank you!
natalie

Anonymous said...

Yes, Natalie, AOL has a plan in place to move your journal over to blogger. I do not know yet what the specifics are. I am not sure just how simple or complicated the process will be - whether it will happen automatically, or whether there will be action you will need to take. When I find out, I will post the information here.

Anonymous said...

Paul I feel like I'm caught between two giants pulling my strings apart...Ebay on one side and AOL on the other! Both have no consideration for anyone and just function on greed alone. I tried to follow the ftp thing they wrote on Magic Smoke I am not geeky enough...hope they come up with something a bit more simple...be well...Sandi

Anonymous said...

Finally!

By the end of the month I'll never have to look at another AOL monstrosity again!  I swear, Paul, it was only the quality of the content that kept me coming back.  You'll be much happier with Blogger, I'm sure.

Oh, and Mary's comment in the last past was just the BEST.  "...water bloat and simmering apprehension," nearly killed me.

Simon
http://simianfarmer.com

Anonymous said...

Is blogger and blogspot the same thing??
Jenny <><

Anonymous said...

Well, an early "Welcome to Blogger," then, Paul.  I actually quite like it.

And I've written a shell script (and some java code) that makes it easy to back up my posts en masse.  I run it at the beginning of each month to save the previous month's posts.  I haven't written anything to re-post saved entries, but that'd be pretty easy.  Happy to help with it, if you need it (assuming that AOL doesn't come through).

Anonymous said...

To answer Natalie's question, yes, Blogger = BlogSpot. That is, you use Blogger (www.blogger.com) to make blog entries on yourname.blogspot.com.

I'm pretty sure you have to do something-or-other before the end of the month to actually move the journal data onto blogspot/blogger. That just haven't said what yet! Meanwhile, backing up is a sensible thing to do about now.

And remember, anything stored on AOL Hometown also needs to find a new home.

It's all very sad....

Anonymous said...

Actually, that was Jenny's question. But thanks for stepping up and answering it, Karen.
-Paul

Anonymous said...

Hi Paul,

Could you please e-mil, post, send out a homing pigeon... whatever...
with your new blog location link?

Thanks!

Loretta

www.lifebeyondlupus.com

Anonymous said...

Well I just found out about this from reading your blog and I think it sucks big time!  And right after their price increase!

Anonymous said...

I hope we can all move over Paulo
natalie