Navbar: An Open Letter to Google

RE: Problems with Google’s new Navigation Bar for Bloggers

Ok, now I’m really pissed so listen up people.

Blogger.com users were inundated with a new navigation bar placed at the top of our blogs. There was no warning this was coming (at least none that I am aware of), and it’s timing no doubt was meant to celebrate its IPO offering. It comes in only four “stylish” colors, meaning that it is not configurable to most websites, and unfortunately it also covers up banners.

I realize that we bloggers are at the mercy of the wims of our service provider, and there is not much we can do about that (with the exception of moving our site to another provider). But has it ever occurred to you (Google) that we bloggers spend a huge amount of time and effort making our sites functional as well as aesthetically attractive? And we certainly don’t need you poo-pooing on all that effort with your navigation bar covering up our work, so show a little consideration pullease.

Furthermore, I also realize that Google employees are probably distracted watching their stock monitors over the prospect of becoming billionaires. But for just for a moment, would you please not be evil and put aside your greed and extend me the courtesy of at least returning my emails. That is if it’s not too much trouble.

And speaking of email, will somebody please kindly tell the Bloke how he can get rid of the navbar that is blocking the top banner. And if for some unforeseen reason you have created it without an option to disable then at least be good enough to advise how it can be moved above my banner.

Oh yes, one more thing. If you are going to impose this on us will you please kindly make it a little more configurable to our websites?

Thank you so much for your consideration.

xxx000

…BB

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BTW: Clicking on the blogger news item link: “the new Blogger Navbar” redirects me to a blank page??? And the network seems awful sluggish and sporadic so let’s get with the program people. Here’s an idea. How ’bout you guys get off the phone with your brokers and give us some service? Thanks for wasting the better part of my day.

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EDITOR’S UPDATE: For those of you who are having the same problem, Blog Bloke has found a fix. They still haven’t returned my emails but I found this information buried in Google’s help files which miraculously showed up after I wrote the original post (just a coincidence perhaps ;-). Copy this code into your html:

table style=”margin-top:40px;”

More info can be found here.

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SIDEBAR: On a positive note, despite the fact the navbar was imposed on the Bloke, I must admit that it does seem to be a useful toy, er… tool. As my fellow blogger Brandon Bertelsen points out:

“Honestly, I think it’s a great value adding feature for experiencing the variety of blogs that are actually on the internet. I’d like to know if someone ever comes across a blog they’ve seen before! I’m going to bookmark the redirection link to a random blog because I was (and will) thoroughly enjoying reading the most random blogs that I was falling upon.”

Adding to that footnote, it comes with some functionality - i.e. a search capability for your blog, a “blog this” link and easy access to your blogger account. Forgetting the fact that the Google Toolbar already has a “Blog This” feature, all in all it does seem to have its usefulness. And I suppose it is a better alternative to their ugly Adsense ads that they used to force on blogspot users.

Problem is the Bloke doesn’t really need it. Granted, it has some ‘useful’ features, but I can do the same things without it. It is essentially just an advertisement for Google under the guise of a tool (or toy depending upon your point of view). It slows down the loading of my webpage, and it was arbitrarily imposed on me without sufficient options to configure it to my site or to disable it. That is the bottom line and so I give it an unabashedly two thumbs down.