So… What Ever Happened to Blo.gs?

Do you remember Blo.gs? It was acquired by Automattic back in April of 2009 and it doesn’t appear, at least on the outside, that much has happened.

I mean, for starters, the incredibly outdated look of the site, the fact that the last news article is dated in April of 2009, and how the FAQ of sorts calls you out if you’re using Netscape as a browser:

the site is all jumbled up! how am i supposed to use this?

you must be using an obsolete web browser, like netscape 4.x. sorry, the website expects a moderately-standards-compliant browser.

What I do remember though is that Blo.gs was once owned by Yahoo! and bought out in 2005 and was a “ping” service that connects and tracks blogs:

Yahoo is now operating blo.gs, one of a small group of “ping” services that connects and tracks blogs. The company purchased the service from Jim Winstead, who started it in 2002; as of the sale’s close, blo.gs now tracks 8,781,788 blogs for 12,237 users.

Around the same time Matt had launched a competitive service, Ping-o-Matic which also doesn’t appear to get consistent love or press time either – that’s neither a critique or complaint, by the way.

My mention of Blo.gs here has nothing to do with any disastisfaction but rather wild curiosity – there were once plans to beefing up the service:

We’re looking forward to beefing up the service and giving it a refresh, while continuing its reputation for reliability.

… and perhaps that’s already happened or perhaps it’s just reached it’s full potential? Every WordPress blog uses it (did you forget? Check your Settings > Writing to be reminded). Jetpack also has some ping-like features like their distribution service as well:

Why am I curious? Because the increased number of blogs equals the increased number of blog posts which should mean that there is an increased use of the service, right? Or is my math wrong – there’s definitely a downward trend as a whole on usage, or at least from statistics being gathered:

Just curious, that’s all.

If anything, I wish I had one of those now-retro shirts:

Thoughts?