When Google bought blogger.com from Pyra Labs over 4 years ago, there was a lot of head-scratching. Blogosphere wasn't new but it was a fraction of what it is today. Google wasn't new either, but it was just search engine site, a really good one. And it still was just a private company.
Today, blogger.com is just a part of Google's public empire and it has become a popular site for the myriad blogging enthusiasts. Count me in as one of the enthusiasts. I have been a pretty satisfied user of blogger.com since I started blogging on this site. About 2 years ago Google set out to revamp blogger.com by adding new features, improving some of the existing ones and, most prominently, migrating the accounts to its own login infrastructure.
I converted this blog to the new version a few months ago. The process was relatively smooth with a few minor glitches. Today blogger.com finally retired its old version for good, hailing: "Old Blogger is dead! Long live Blogger!". What tipped me off was the missing blogger image button at the bottom of my blog pages. According to blogger.com's terms of service users are (or were) required to display this button on their pages.
I am not sure if the terms of service still require displaying this button. Right now it seems flaky (look to the right). Sometimes it loads, other times it fails. For now I'm going to leave it, but if it continues to remain missing, I'll assume that it's now a relic of the past and its presence is no longer required. Then perhaps it's time to toss it.