Saturday 23 March 2013

Grrrrr Google

I don't deal too well with change, my grumbling about my new windows 8 laptop and its swishy app'y ways, is proof of that (though I have finally managed to make peace with it). So when Google announced that it was closing its Google Reader soon, I wanted to weep!
I personally think it's a strange decision, as the integrated-ness, of being a blogger and using the dashboard's inbuilt reader, to see what others have posted (or in other words getting wonderfully distracted for hours, when I was supposed to be posting something myself) while organising my own site, seems, well, logical. But it is to be no more, and where this leaves the relevance of 'Google Friend Connect', I guess we will have to wait and see.

So what to do? Well, as of this morning I have swapped all of my subscriptions over to my current feed reader of choice Bloglovin'.  Initially, I spent a few days of faffing, until I realised there had to be a simpler way than typing and searching for each blog individually. After a quick look in the settings, I found the subscription import tool!

Log in or Sign up to Bloglovin' - Go to your Settings - Scroll down to Other - Click Import Blogs - Import direct from Google Reader - Log in to Google account - Accept Bloglovin' Access to your subscription info - Wait - Wait some more, lots of people are doing this right now - Wait - Your done!
Hurrah, Now all my 350+ subscriptions are there ready for me to read. The only downside for me  with bloglovin', is that you can't actually see who follows your blog (it only shows you a few of your most recent followers, as the site is geared to anonymous following...spoilsports!).  I personally think that getting to know who is interested in your site, and finding out about their blogs is a huge part of the enjoyment of blogging. Hopefully, this is something they will remedy soon as other than that is a simple and eloquent alternative.

What reader do you use? If you have any suggestions I would love to hear them:)

Wendy x

13 comments:

  1. I just swapped to bloglovin too, and the same thing about it annoys me - the anonymity of following. I think it's something which has long bothered users as when I was trying to find out if you could find out who was following so you knew who were genuine new followers and not duplicates from google freind connect, I found a whole thread of comments with people complaining about just this and it went back a couple or three years. Let's hope they change this soon though. It'd be nice when it comes to giveaways and such like, to know who was really following you and not just an opportunist xxx

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  2. They discontinued Google Friend Connect last year or the year before, I believe but somehow, it's still working. I'm not sure what's up with that!

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    1. Oh that is odd, I do wonder how they make these decisions! xx

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  3. I spent a huge chunk of last Sunday putting all my subscriptions on bloglovin.

    One good thing about it is with bloglovin you actually get to see the blog rather than just a white background - you get to see the effort people have put in to their blog.

    Chippy

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    1. Very true! I do like that you can click to the next blog on the task bar thingumy at the top, and actually see the blog, which also makes it much eaiser for commenting! xx

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  4. I have been using and enjoying Feedly.

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  5. Hmmmmmmmmmm - I am confoosed! I didn't think that they were getting rid of the blogger dashboard itself but rather Google Reader which, to me, is a separate thing. I think I shall wait and see how this pans out before I switch completely. Like Brittany said - they "got rid of " GFC aaaages ago - but it's still workin; ;)

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    1. Oh, you know I never thought of it that way, I just assumed that the dashboard posts were like a preview of google reader, and they would disappear with the reader. But like you say it is a separate thing, so perhaps I am worrying over nothing (probably) which would also mean that the 'never say die' GFC won't be totally obsolete after all...tis' indeed very confusing! xx

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  6. I have to do that. I actually read all my blogs through blogger. That's different, right?

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    1. I think as LandGirl1980, says above, it is a separate thing so perhaps, it won't be affected by the readers closure, which would be wonderful, fingers crossed xx

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