odd relationships : 'blogger.com' to 'blogspot.com' to 'google.com'

Illustration: relational links for 'blogger' and 'blogspot':

I had a theory at one point that, before being acquired by Google, 'blogspot' was part of (or had a relationship with) jotspot.com, but this assumption appears to be incorrect, per the history described at http://www.blogger.com/about.



From the archives; a self-description from blog*spot, circa 2000:

BlogSpot is a free hosting service for Blogger™-powered blogs ...

BlogSpot is a service of Pyra Labs.

So, in a nutshell:

"Blog*Spot" is a HOST (where you can choose to publish your blog to), while "blogger" is a USER INTERFACE, which is used to set up and manage your blog.

The original Blog*Spot clearly explained the relationship of these two sites as they walked you through the process; see http://web.archive.org/web/20010405072515/blogspot.com/tutorial.asp

This clarified what you could expect from the process before you started. Google, on the other hand, doesn't tend to give you too many details on their services ahead of time (or effectively hides this information). The problem seems to be that there is an underlying assumption by the people who organize
the Google service entry points that users already know what each service is for, how
to use it, etc., or, if they don't, that the potential users are willing to sign up for the service in order to figure out what it's for and how to use it.

(Note that Google isn't the only one guilty of this; I see it a lot on the web for web sites, services, and applications. Sort of an accidental 'if you have to ask you don't deserve to use it' philosophy...)