Ev Moves On

I'd like to offer congratulations to Ev not because he's leaving Google, but because of the success he has had during the five years of Blogger. Ev and the Blogger team (both old and new) paved the way for companies like Six Apart and we all respect what they have accomplished.

I started Dollarshort on Blogger and was made "Blog of Note" within a couple of weeks of my first post. With this accolade came readers, including some fairly popular webloggers. When we announced that we were going to create Movable Type, it was many of Dollarshort's readers who first spread the word. Since that time, I've always felt lucky for our fortunate timing and that competition with Blogger was always honorable.

We know that running a blogging company is like running a megaphone company. Whenever you announce news about the product or company it's like you're holding a stockholders meeting in a windowless, doorless convention hall, handing out the newest megaphone model and then telling everyone the big news.

Ev heard a lot of megaphones during the past five years and the company, I think, always handled customer feedback with grace and style. I know first-hand how exhausting running a 24-hour service can be and the strength to do something for five years is not to be underestimated.

I do see the times changing and it's a bit sad to know that Ev won't be at the helm of Blogger anymore. Competing with Google was always less scary knowing that one of our own (meaning a blogger who started a company because he thought the technology was cool) was running Blogger.

I wish Ev the best of luck in his travels and future enterprises. I wouldn't be sitting at my desk at Six Apart right now if it wasn't for Blogger raising the tide for the rest of us.