Although this blog is mostly to illustrate the uses of drupal, it is also a place to talk about some of the current trends.

As of March 2010, Blogger, Google's entry in the earliest on-line blog systems, will discontinue FTP editing for accounts hosted elsewhere. Blogger, still offers free blogs, and will allow a "custom" domain blog, presumably on their own hosting, but will no longer allow users to use the blogger editor to publish via FTP to their own domain.

While this removes one of the business applications of that particular publishing tool, the landscape for CMS is vastly different that it was 5 years ago.

If Blogger no longer lends itself to the user who wishes to update their own business site, it has expanded the number of people who use on-line publishing. In itself, that is an accomplishment.

A free press is important, and the true accomplishment of blogs and the open source software that supports them is that personal publishing offers anyone with an idea access to open communication.

My on-site blogger pages are now disconnected from the editing tool that produced them. I have a page on blogspot so I can look at what they are doing with their program. Perhaps it is irrelevant to my business purposes, as most people who post using blogger don't seem to need more than the basic google templates. But it's always interesting keeping up with the trends.

jbell.blogspot.com