Blogger Help Group

Make sure you check out the AOL Imports section of the Blogger Help Group. This is being actively watched and responded to by the folks at Blogger.

Update on Private Journals and Comments

As Joe mentioned earlier today, in order for Blogger to be able to migrate a private journal, you would first need to make it public. There was an issue in this process that would result in the comments being deleted once you made the journal public. We subsequently requested you hold off until we sorted this out. We have.

I'm pleased to report that those of you who maintain private Journals and have been holding off migrating them while we corrected this, you may now proceed to make them to public and start your migration. We made the necessary adjustments which will allow your comments to follow your posts over to Blogger.

How you can help us help you...

Hi again,

In order for us to be able to help with migration issues, especially if you got as far as being able to create a Blogger URL, it really helps if you include that URL in your comments when looking for help. While you're at it, please include your AOL Journal URL too, although your comment is associated with a blog we want to make sure we have all the facts.

Migration Update

A Couple of Updates

Issue 1- Failures to Find Journals
Blogger have been examining some of the failure cases that have been reported and after testing URLs given to us, it appears there may be some confusion around URL to use when starting the migration.  So the Journals URL you need to enter should be the one people use to view the blog. The URL should never contain white space.

Example:

Good URL:  http://journals.aol.com/screenname/TitleOfBlogWithoutSpaces
Not So Good URL:  http://journals.aol.com/screenname/Title Of Blog With Spaces

Issue 2- Failure to Upload Journals Image
Blogger is currently having problems uploading Journals images that were added directly from AOL Photos when that feature became available March 2007. These images use the URL structure http://pictures.aol.com/ap/singleImage.do?pid= . Blogger is working on the issue. If you've already imported your Journal to Blogger you may need to reimport it to copy these photos over. Oct 10 Update: Images of the form pictures.aol.com/ap/simgleImage.do?.... are now importing into Picasa Web Albums.

Blogger.com Transfer Update

All,

Now that we've had about a day's worth of transfers to Blogger, we've tracked a couple of issues that I wanted to make you aware of, and I wanted to reiterate a couple of important tidbits.

Private Journals & Comments - While it's possible to move a private journal to Blogger by first making it public, it does look like there is an issue in importing the comments from that journal, and they may in fact be deleted upon import. We're is investigating a solution to this one, and will let you know the moment it's in place. Until then, unless you either don't have any comments, or don't care to keep them, I'd suggest you hold off on migrating private journals for now.

Account Name Already In Use - If you had established your Blogger blogs prior to the import using the same blog name, the Blogger importer will *not* be able to use it as it will not overwrite any files.  You'll first have to clear out or rename your placeholder Blogger blog, then re-initiate the import process. 

Feature Requests for Blogger - While we've been working very closely with the good folks at Blogger for the migration, we're really not at all involved with the future development or enhancement of their product.  I'd encourage you to use their feedback mechanisms to make these suggestions, as they may never see them here in Magic Smoke.

AOL Pictures and Albums - As Frank commented below, individual AOL Pictures images in your Journal are actually getting copied over to Google's Picasa. AOL Pictures albums, however, will not be included in the import process.  If you wish to re-associate your AOL Pictures albums with your new Blogger blog, you'll have to do that manually.  Ditto if you wish to move them to Picasa.

Blogger Can't Find Your Journal - Is your journal marked private?  If so, that would be why. Prior to making it public and initiating the import process, please review the first bullet point above.  If the journal is *not* private, let us know and we'll try to figure out why it's not being found.

Images Not Stored in AOL Pictures - Images hosted anyplace *other* than AOL Pictures are not being automatically copied to Picasa, and will have to be copied over manually, if you desire.

I think that about covers all of the known issues at this point.

I know there is a lot of anger and frustration out there about this shutdown, but please understand that we are doing everything we can to make this as painless as possible.  The team doing this work is primarily composed of the same people who developed and managed Journals through it's launch and growth stages, and we're just as sad as you are that the call was made to retire the product. Our partnership with Blogger isn't making us a dime, and was done solely because they offer a very solid product and are backed by very passionate people who were willing to take on quite a bit of heavy lifting to make this a smooth transition. Our collective hats are off to them for being such great partners in this, and if you give this a shot, I think you'll be very happy being part of the Blogger family.

Tags: Journals, Blogger, Shutdown, Migration, Import

Blogger.com

As you probably know by now, AOL Journals is scheduled to be permanently shut down on Oct. 31. It’s never an easy decision to shut down a product, especially one like AOL Journals that some of our members have used and loved for many years. But with a decline in Journals usage, we have to look carefully at all of AOL’s features and products to ensure we’re using our limited development and operational resources in ways that provide the greatest value to the largest number of members as possible.
 
Though we know this is an inconvenience, the good news is that we've partnered with the good people at Blogger.com to provide a smooth transition for your journal. Blogger is a free service from Google that makes it easy to share your thoughts with friends and the world. Blogger supports most of the features you've come to expect from AOL Journals, and it's easy to get started. If you wish to transfer your journal to Blogger, they will move your posts, comments and photos to your new blog on their service. When you're ready, go to this link to get started.

 

We've conducted a fair amount of internal testing against the Blogger.com import process over the past few weeks, and have identified a few issues that you may run into:

• Some users may get "Transfer process failed" error when trying to import their AOL Journals. They may need to clear their cookies and try again.


• Badly formatted HTML may cause Embed or Object tags not to be imported.


• Some users may see the import fail during the final "Publish imported posts now" step. Refreshing the page usually solves this problem. Also, some users will be able to go to www.blogger.com to view, edit, and publish their imported blog, even after the failure message.


• AOL Pictures Albums embedded in your Journal will not automatically migrate over during the standard process. Individual images will migrate just fine, but any albums you wish to re-associate with your Blogger blog will have to be done manually, post-migration.


• If your Journal is currently marked Private, you'll have to flip it to public status prior to the migration, otherwise the import tool will not be able to find it.  Once you've moved the Journal to Blogger, you'll be able to set it to private again at your leisure.

You can always find the latest list of general Blogger Known Issues here: http://knownissues.blogspot.com and Blogger's AOL Journals Help here: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=112742.
 
If you are planning to move your Journal to Blogger, we recommend that you help your readers find your new blog by posting a redirect link in your AOL Journal, which will stay live and fully functional until Oct.31.

Tags: Journals, Sunset, Blogger

AOL Hometown

Instructions for downloading your files from AOL Hometown are contained in this entry on the AOL People Connection blog. This only works for US-based accounts.

Keeping in touch

With the demise of AOL Journals, we'll lose the Alerts system for keeping track of journals. So, something else needs to take its place. I suggest to use a feedreader. One is provided by Google, called Google Reader. If you've set up a Blogger blog, you've set up a Google account. Google Reader is part of that. It's fairly simple to use.

Each blog has a so-called RSS feed, often indicated by an orange graphic in the address bar. You can subscribe to that by clicking on the graphic . You are then prompted to specify which feedreader to use, and confirm. All you have to do from there on is check back the Reader at regular intervals. You will be notified of comments through Blogger, or whichever journaling hosting service you use.

aoljurlAdd, aoljurlAdd_1

Wednesday 1 October

I'm very pleased that many are already changing to a Blogger blog.

Sue [catslittertray] has come
up with an idea to keep in touch through Facebook. I'm unfamiliar with
that site, but email her direct for details. Suffix her screenie with
@aol.com, and it'll reach her.


Similarly, Sal has set up a group on MSN.
(edit 13.34 BST)


I am extremely concerned about the number of people that are as yet
unaware of the changeover, and have requested Vish to transfer all the
unclaimed blogs to a dedicated Blogger account, admin'd by me. Haven't
had word back yet (it's 5.10 am in CA), but hope it's going to work.



If you don't know which blogs you host on AOL, put the following into your browser's address bar: journals.aol.com/screenname and hit Enter. It'll come up with a list. Or not.



The migration link will be accessible in a couple of days from now.