Beware - Google is Pulling Blogspot Blogs - how many of you? - Raise your hands.

I've lost 3 non-spam blogs this way. I only have one left (my most important one) and I worry it will disappear every day. I've thought about moving it, but I would lost my readers because once it's gone, you can't exactly do a redirect.

Yes, one of my friends has lost his blog the same way. He started blogging from last 2 months and suddenly found the blog disappeared. I haven't faced the problem yet but think it's better to start blogging in own domain or else word press is also good and less risky.

I've heard that if you had an adroid phone, you're phone service would be toast too.

As far as less splogs on blogger, it's a good thing. Google has finally decided to salvage the the last little bit of legitimacy that blogger had left after the spam fest it had become.

Alway Back-up your site and Read TOS and separate your Domain name if you are in a hosting.

One day, some time off in the distant future IMer's are going to start taking their livelihoods serious. And by that I mean, ANYTIME they open an account, whether it be an account with blogger, wordpress, bluehost, hostgator, ning, tumblr, digg, mixx, Jumptags, Squidoo Bloghi, slashdot, etc., and etc., they are going to take the time to read and understand the TOS and NOT ASSUME they know the parameters of the relationship.

Hint, Hint... that's why they have you agree to their TOS. Here's part of blogger's TOS for your reading pleasure.

Spam: Spam takes several forms in Blogger, all of which can result in deletion of your account or blog. Some examples include creating blogs designed to drive traffic to your site or to move it up in search listings and posting comments on other people's blogs just to promote your site or product.

REMEMBER: that's only a few examples. Another is the content test. Here is what blogger has to say about what they expect:

Blogger is a free service for communication, self-expression and freedom of speech. We believe Blogger increases the availability of information, encourages healthy debate, and makes possible new connections between people.

Translated; if your account is a squeeze page, sales page, affiliate marketing program link farm, affiliate marketing gateway page, affiliate marketing direct link page, a sales conduit page... guess what? You are violating their TOS. In summation, they want useful content.

Two weeks ago there were a number of new WF members who started and joined in on threads bemoaning how blogger unjudiciously deleted their accounts. I went and pulled up a number of these deleted blogs and each one of the individuals ranting and raging against blogger were engaging in outright in your face spam.

One blogger site got deleted because a advertiser red flagged that particular affiliate marketer as a spammer and disabled all the links to his blogger account. He didn't even know it until I showed his URL from the advertiser that was red flagged as a spammer.

What this means is that you will have to use such accounts to engage in OTB or face the possibility of those accounts getting yanked.

Christian, you may be part of a small percentage of savvy IMers who understand how to build their own networks through OTB. Congratulations!!!

It's silly to shun or bespeak negatively of blogger. Just learn the rules and play by them. I've never had any of my blogger accts deleted and have never received a warning and I have over a t-h-o-u-s-a-n-d of them.