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Sunday, April 21, 2013

Miss Canada on Canada Day


This post was almost titled April in July

Canada Day, my country's "independence" day is July 1st every year. As it turns out, this year on that day, I will not be thinking about my country, but about one compatriot in particular. 

Instead of spoiling the news any further, I am going to let you check out April's site if you haven't already and there you can congratulate her yourself. 

I am so very happy for you April.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

What do you do when your blogging service fails you?

    It's something of a mantra in the web industry: "You can't compete with free". If your product is a paid offering and your competitor's very similar product is offered at no cost, you're going find it very difficult to succeed. It's a story that has been played out in the arenas of multiple online services.
    Thus as consumers, we've become used to the web as somewhere we get stuff for nothing. It's worked very well for us too, if I were to take a look at the online services I use and count how much they would cost me to replicate for myself on a server of my own, for example, I would be significantly out of pocket.
    Of course, nothing is truly free. The trade-off for the free services we use is that our  data is sold on, we are shown adverts, or we are encouraged to trade up to a paid offering. Some providers make this work very well for themselves, others struggle and their products fall by the wayside
    Google recently announced the impending closure of their Reader product, a move widely seen as an attempt to drive users to their Google+ social network instead. Never a web superstar, Reader nevertheless gained a dedicated following who have been vociferous in their dismay. Attention has now turned to Google's other products, with speculation rife that Blogger might be next for the axe. It's not an unreasonable worry, as users of Yahoo! 360 and Posterous would be happy to tell you it wouldn't be the first time a free blogging service with a large user base has been closed.
    The evidence however does not entirely support an impending Blogger closure. Reader saw a slow decline in Google support in its final years, with features disappearing and no new development. By contrast Blogger has benefited from continuous development, most recently it has received a new template editor for example. It's never possible to entirely second-guess the moves of a company like Google, but Blogger seems better supported than one would expect for a doomed product.
    So for myself I won't be moving from Blogger merely because of a rumour. As any blog owner should I keep a fresh export of my blogs on my backup drive so if I had to I could do it, but why jump because of something that hasn't happened?
    But what if it did happen? If Blogger, Tumblr, Wordpress or any other free blogging platform closed its doors for good? It's easy enough to move to any of a host of competitors of course, but given the risk inherent to the free business model described above is that not just a move towards yet another inevitable closure?
    Perhaps it's time to recognise that free rides do sometimes come to an end, and either accept services with a visible revenue model such as advertising, or simply move to a paid service with your own domain name for portability in the event it closes.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Looking Over My Shoulder

It's been a while since we featured Cyrsti on T-Central.  Cyrsti is a prolific blogger, who has been at it since 2010.  Her blog and her writing are well thought out and well worth your time.

In her latest post, Looking Over My Shoulder, Cyrsti discusses that issue which is so familiar to genetic women and should be given attention by those who are transitioning or just crossdressing out in public.  You're not percieved as a male out there and you no longer have that "male security".  Cyrsti relates an incident that she experienced several years ago.  It taught her a lesson, and perhaps one of you may benefit from her experience.

The People - Personal Thoughts

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