Author: Rick Klau

Back in January, we set up the official Blogger account on Twitter. We had a general idea of what we hoped to accomplish – better interaction with passionate users, quick communication of known issues, bug fixes, etc. – but this was not a long planned deliberate move by us. If anything, it was a bit…

On my way out the door to SXSW, I walked past the bookshelf in our bedroom and took The Dark Tower off the shelf. I originally read the entire Dark Tower series in 2005, effectively back-to-back-to-back, and adored them. I can’t really recall a Stephen King book I haven’t enjoyed, but a few stand out:…

Took another crack at hacking my site’s template over the last few days, mainly to better understand what options are out there for Blogger users. I’d gotten pretty tired of the prior site’s design – too much padding between sections, very choppy presentation, and a general lack of consistency through the page. (Didn’t take long:…

I’d been invited to speak at a couple SXSW conferences but had conflicts each time. Ironically, I’m not speaking this year but given Blogger’s long history with SXSW, I was eager to come and see what the fuss was about. I’m glad I’m here. I’ve attended dozens of tech and industry conferences over the years,…

I leave for SXSW tomorrow, and will be there through Tuesday. While I really don’t like traveling over weekends without the family, Blogger has a long history at SXSW and I didn’t feel that I could miss this. We’re having a party with Google Reader Sunday night, so if you’re in the Austin area please…

Oh! what a tangled web we weave… (Sir Walter Scott, Marmion) Earlier this week, a friend of mine’s father passed away from a sudden heart attack. He blogged about his father’s loss, and I did what I normally do when I see a post in Google Reader that I find noteworthy, interesting or worth coming…

Forgive me a brief indulgence in some Illinois politics: there was a special election today in Rahm Emanuel’s old district. Twelve Democrats were running. Special elections are almost always hard to predict, and turnout will be low. Tonight, Cook County Board Member Mike Quigley won, and as Lynn Sweet notes, his campaign manager was Tom…

My first job was as a dish-washer at Chez Claude restaurant in Acton, Massachusetts. It was a family-owned French restaurant, and I wasn’t yet old enough to drive, so my parents had to drop me off at 4pm every Saturday and pick me up after we closed (usually around 11). I eventually graduated from washing…

Last night we announced a big upgrade to Blogger Following, something we’ve been working on for months. I’m excited about this for a lot of reasons – but before I get to them, I want to address a couple concerns people have expressed on Twitter and on their blogs. Concern #1: I lost followers! I’m…

Nearly two years ago to the day, I joined Twitter. I explained: I can recall at least a half dozen different explanations from people I respect who all explain Twitter in fundamentally different ways. And that, I now see, is part of its strength. It’s different things to different people: for some, it’s a way…