Soooo, Rayhan and I are in the same blogging cohort as is Matt Pierson. When Kristin was showing us Google Reader we decided to subscribe to all of the people's blogs in our cohort. Rayhan was then checking out the content from her subscription on google reader and when she went over the stuff from Matt Pierson's blog she found some stuff that wasn't on his blog. When she clicked the link to it it took her to Pierson's blog but had a date of 2010 (well before he created his blog) and it said content not available. The mystery content were drawings of little green neighborhoods and people with pumpkin heads. Just silly stuff.
I asked Matt P and he said he had no idea what that stuff was. SOooo, I figured that there must have been a blogspot with the same domain name as his that existed before his but was since deleted. Somehow, Google reader can still summon this content.
I'm not really sure how I feel about this. Actually I am sure. That shouldn't be happening. I wonder if Google reader is aware of this. Probably they are.
Just goes to show the world wide web is a crazy place and sometimes things happen that shouldn't. Mysteries abound. Glitches happen. Just thought it was interesting.
P.S. If you're interested in seeing the pumpkin people, simply subscribe to Matt Pierson's blog on google reader . . .
Another really interesting feature of Blogspot (I don't know if you're aware) is that you can see how many and from where people are reading your blog. For example, I'm quite popular in Russia and Germany, and I've been referred by some french blog, AND, stumbleupon.
ReplyDeleteFun facts. And i'm really quite interested in these pumpkin people...
Yeah that was pretty weird when it happened but also slightly entertaining ... I wonder if anyone had the same issue or are all our blogs showing up with weird posts on everyone's google readers??
ReplyDeleteThat thought is a little scary. Never post anything online that you would not want to come back to haunt because it can be found whether you delete the account or not. I think that's a good lesson to remember with all the tech we've learned about. We should always be careful that we don't misuse it because our actions can be more permanent.
ReplyDeleteI like to sing google's praises, but things never work 100% of the time. Google has an overall very good track record with me and nearly every product of theirs that I have used is pretty much spot on. There are the occasional annoyance though. For instance, I hate the login for Google's umich account. What really is a bother is that it seems to be slightly different almost every time I login. My personal account also frequently overrides my school account and I have to logout of it to login to my blogspot account despite having not used my personal account for days.
ReplyDeleteI have never witnessed anything as whacky as what you experienced with google reader though. I should check it out, but Google has probably already repaired the problem. They always do and that's why I love them!
I am sad that i missed this, I'm sure it would have been one of the more interesting things to happen during this semester. Like Jack though, I think google is a great tool and doesn't seem to be anything bad with it. The umich login thing from google is quite annoying but at least I don't have a personal account to complain about. The web is quite an interesting place and that is why we should be even more aware of the places we send our students to.
ReplyDeleteI didn't post it, Meg. Thanks for telling me this, other Matt, it's nice to know that I have a pumpkin drawing internet doppleganger. I agree though, the web is a crazy place.. kind of makes me scared to put my personal info out there. Seems like some tech wizard can come in and steal my private info or something. As teachers we have to be careful what we put on the web.. interesting how you can turn this in to a learning experience.
ReplyDeleteHurray for Pumpkin People drawings!