BloggerGenerator ® Review

Is Blogger Generator Any Good?

Joe Tierney, the creator of Blogger Generator, is the real thing.  What I mean by that is he's not some faceless Internet marketing guru type who has abandoned his product--say, like Jeff Alderson of Xybercode.  Joe does a great job of keeping the program updated, so every so often you will get an email from Joe with a newer version of Blogger Generator.  You definitely want to be on Joe's email list.  Do you get other offers from Joe?  Well, sure.  This is marketing, after all.  You expect that.  And admittedly, I haven't been too interested in much of Joe's other products.  But merely for the updates, it's worth it.

The reason you want a living, breathing person behind this is because Google owns Blogger, and Google is always changing things around.  You'll be using Blogger Generator, and suddenly one day it won't post correctly, or something like that.  You'll soon get an email from Joe explaining that Google changed something about CAPTCHAs or whatever, and here's his work-around, now enjoy it.  That's the fact of life in search engine marketing tools.  Nothing is permanent.  Everything is in flux.  You just learn to live with it.

Joe Tierney's Support for Blogger Generator

I will illustrate Joe's attention with two anecdotes, so you can make the decision.

When I first purchased Blogger Generator, I had some problems getting the program to work.  I appeared to

be missing a required file.  So, I e-mailed him about the missing file.  Expecting that it would take days or weeks--or never--for him to get back to me, I went searching Google for a copy of the missing file.  In about half an hour, I found it and installed it.  But in the meantime, I had neglected to check my email.  Lo and behold, Joe had already emailed me back with the missing file.  Pretty impressive to get a response after about an hour. 

But to balance out this great story:  last winter, I simply could not get Blogger Generator to post.  I tried everything on the face of the planet to get it to work.  So essentially, I had a broken, useless program.  I figured it had something to do with a Google update, so I emailed Joe and asked him.  Nothing.  No response.  I emailed again.  Nothing.  I really didn't expect a personal reply if Joe was having problems overcoming yet another Blogger update.  But how about a mass email to all customers saying something like:  Hey, I know there's a problem, I'm working on it.  I checked a prominent forum where he is a member and put out feelers.  Nobody knew about about Blogger Generator being broken.  I waited and waited.  Yes, eventually the update came, and it was a substantial update that must have taken Joe awhile to figure out.  But at least keep us in the loop, Joe. 

Responsive to Customer Requests

Here's another interesting thing.  Blogger Generator used to have a really annoying function.  The minute you opened up the program, a window would pop up asking you where you wanted to save your data.  This happened twice:  for the Blogger URLs and for the data associated with the blog creation.  This sucked because:  a.)  that's not the first thing I wanted to think about upon opening the program; and worse, b.)  if you wanted to back out, you couldn't (you basically had to select an empty file just to back out of the program--not an elegant way to proceed).  But spurred on by customer requests, Joe changed all that.

I bring up this anecdote because it illustrates that Blogger Generator is a very real, viable, living thing.  It's not a dead object like *cough cough* some software out there.  Blogger Generator is well and alive, its creator keeps it running and improving, which must mean what?  Anyone?  Yes, it means that it still works.

Good Things About Blogger Generator--Streamlined, No Fat, No Junk

It's a real stripped-down program.  It doesn't have a lot of other crap built into it.  It creates blogs, verifies, posts them, and pings them.  It's a fairly small download and doesn't take up a lot of room on your drive.  It's as if you talked to a programmer friend of yours and said, "Hey, can you code me this, and here's what I want it to do..."  And your programmer friend goes off and puts something together for you.  It's like that.  It hasn't been created by some huge internet marketing corporation that wants to sell you some bloated program that does all kind of other garbage.

My Major Complaint About Blogger Generator

But here's the downside of that "programmer practicality."  It feels like a collection of loose parts rather than one machine that works in a seamless fashion.  You have to master each individual portion and then figure out how it works with the other portion.  Joe Tierney's handbook isn't very enlightening, either.

Here's what I mean.  You actually get 4 separate programs:

1.  GrabLinks

This is a very simple free script that Joe distributes.  What it does is pulls links out of your list of websites that you want linked to in your blogs, and puts those links in a "friendly" format for posting.  It's a handy tool.

2.  Blogger Generator

This is the one you're actually paying for, the one that does the heavy lifting of creating the blogs.

3.  Blogger Verifier

Blogger Verifier is new as of Spring 2007, and it is a necessary evil imposed on us by Google.  Blogger Verifier helps you automatically verify the email account that you started in conjunction with your Blogger blog.  Without Blogger Verifier, you would have to do this by hand--very laboriously by hand.

4.  Blog Poster

After blogs are created, you open up Blog Poster and post to your blogs.

5.  Blog Pinger

Finally, after you have posted your blogs, you'll want to ping them.  I believe that Joe distributes this free, as well.

My question is why can't all programs be integrated as one?  I realize that he distributes parts for free--which is fine.  But how about an integrated interface for paying customers?

Blogger Generator - The Bottom Line

I will admit that I have a soft spot for Blogger Generator.  For several reasons.  As already outlined, Joe Tierney stands behind his product.  He's inconsistent, but if you hang around long enough Joe will eventually make good.  Honestly, I can't think of anyone in the business who is 100% consistent.  They have other interests, not to mention that thing called "a life."

Most makers of search engine marketing products laugh in the face of customer support.  They think that they've got your money, so it's just time to get out of Dodge.  Blogger Generator does work, but it takes some learning.  Joe's instruction book is barely helpful.  You really need to learn it by trial and error.  On whole, it's the price that swings it.  Blogger Generator is one of the most reasonably priced blog generators on the market, so if you can handle the learning curve you'll come out ahead.