LET'S GET IT STARTED...
It started with a simple question. I was visiting a friend the other day in his office. In casual conversation it came out that I'd been maintaining a blog for much of this year. He eagerly goes to his computer and types the URL in...after glancing at the amount of content and the range of categories, he exclaims: "Can I print it all out?"
You see, he's much more comfortable reading things on paper than off a computer screen.
The question stopped me cold. Sure, you could print out a post, or even a few posts. But I had no idea if hitting the print command on the browser would get you all the 200 plus posts for this year.
Which got me thinking, what if there was a service that could at the press of a button, go into your blog, grab all the content, pictures, formatting, etc., and print the whole thing out as a book? I mean Mossberg just reviewed a number of companies that could print out cool, professional looking photo albums, so how hard can printing out a blog be?
Not a fancy, schmancy, "look my written stuff is now a book for all of immortality" and a vanity project to boot, but "here're all my blog entries in a nicely printed format, bound in a book-like format, so I at least have a paper copy of all this stuff" kind of book.
On a whim, I type "turn a blog into a book" into Google, and presto, get these results.
Top of the listings, is a company I'd never heard of, called "BlogBinders". And guess what they offered, right on the front page:
"Turn your weblog into a book!
Blogbinders.com helps you turn your blog into a bound book - great as a gift, an archive, or even to sell to your readers!
It is quick, easy, and affordable to turn your blog into a printed book. All it takes is a few easy steps:
- Provide information about your blog account
- Select styles, cover/back and customizations
- Review automatically generated proof
It's that simple! In under a week, your book will arrive."
Right underneath was a "Get Started Now" button! And the pricing seemed reasonable at first glance. OK, so you wouldn't get all the content outside the blog via the various links in the posts, but you'd get the basic posts themselves.
At this point, I'm shaking my head, thinking "Ain't technology grand"? You wish for a service that you've just "dreamt up", type it into Google, and presto, there's a real, live company offering to provide that exact, same service! I mean, it's the next best thing to a genie in a magic lamp!
So I eagerly click the "get started" button, spend the next ten minutes going through the design wizard, anticipation building at every step.
Especially exciting was the step where you select the fonts for your book. Being a bit of a font nut, I spend a couple of extra minutes perusing all the options before making a selection.
And then, I'm ready...ready to click the button that gets the whole process of sucking the content down, formatting into a book, and seeing a proof on the screen already.
And I do...
The next page served up, reads:
"We are still waiting for your content to download from your Blog server.
The current status is: fatal_error
This page will refresh every 15 seconds until your content is ready and then will proceed to proof generation which may take 0-1 minutes for completion.
Thanks for your patience."
You knew there wasn't a happy ending to this story, didn't you?
The site then spends the next few minutes whirring away trying to download the content, but with the same "fatal error" message. The software driving the site isn't smart enough to take the process off the loop, and give me a page that offers ways to fix the problem.
I start the process anew in a different browser, with the same result. Next stop, phone help. But I was really hoping to avoid that...and the whole thing started on a whim anyway.
Instead, I thought I'd share the experience with you all...see if you've any any better luck with BlogBinders or any other company that offers a similar service.
I'll let you know if BlogBinders comes through after the phone call, if I end up making it.
In the meantime, where's the dang "Print" button in the browser?
P.S. OK, so I just found out there's no phone help, just an email address to send "bug reports" to. I mean, it's just a little, bitty company that got started on a whim as well, it seems. So, we'll see...
Check out sqoop.
John Batelle is selling his blog as a book through them:
http://www.sqoop.com/corp_libraries/battelle/battelle_blog2004.php
Posted by: Nivi | Saturday, July 23, 2005 at 03:26 PM