Blogger (and Google in general) have been getting some bad press lately. They decided to make a counterpost on Buzz, not a bad idea. Some people are cynical about the entire post, but it has good and bad points.

They’re right, Google is only a company and its employees are only human. Mistakes are made and they’re very good at fixing (at least the big ones). The do eat their own dogfood and that is why bugs like this can be spotted faster.

It’s also what causes the press.

If a single Blogger blog malfunctions, no one cares. Unless that single blog is the Google blog. They can’t expect bloggers not to notice this. This isn’t the old-style press where we wait until it’s a proven, serious, do-or-die issue before printing. Bloggers write while the news is hot. If in two hours it’s all fixed, that’s not the point.

Are our expectations of Google and Blogger too high? Undoubtedly. We all know that as consumers, especially geeky consumers, we demand more than is possible. That’s just the way things are. Users of my hacks expect far more than I can deliver, and I expect far more than Blogger can deliver. The mark of greatness is handling this well.

Their post makes some good points, and I won’t disagree with them completely. We can give them some slack. However, they try to get out of responsability a little too much. EAT your dogfood, FIX the service, and BE RESPONSIBLE for what happened, even if it’s no big deal. They’ve done their PR bit, but actions speak louder than words. It is far more powerful to say ‘we did’ than ‘we do’. So while I sympathise with them, I must side with the great penguin:

Don’t give me excuses – give me results!