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MyBlogLog

Where did my widget go! After searching through a few dozen web pages, I just wanted to make all of you aware that MyBlogLog seems to be having technical difficulty. Not only was the site itself down earlier, but the widget is not rendering properly.

If you noticed a strangely conspicuous hole in your blogs layout or some strange image loads don’t be too concerned. I am sure that they are working on it.

Baseless Speculation

Now for some baseless speculation. As likely as not this outage is a result of the ongoing system upgrades that the site has been experiencing. Since they were acquired by Yahoo, there has been a slow rollout of new features. First, there was a major overhaul to stability and the inclusion of account tagging. A month or so later, there was the addition of the mass messaging functionality (love it or hate it).

Last week they were making what appeared some minor UI changes, but it is entirely possible that they were only a small part of a larger feature deployment.

We will keep you posted if new developments occur.

Web 2.0 Roundup

What is interesting is the point that this brings up. As we continue to add more remotely hosted widgets, many of our blogs are being left at the mercy of often inconsistent external technology. As the web repurposes itself into vehicle for widgets, many of which are being powered by other remotely hosted scripts, you have to wonder when the keystone will be kicked out.

For instance, if you use one of the many “advanced commenting” managers, what happens if the startup goes out of business? Good companies will always build in ways for you to roll back to your previous settings without losing data, but many BETA products have simply not gotten around to do so.

Something to keep in mind the next time you consider trying out that new widget that’s all the rage.

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