Those of you who write blogs as well as read them have probably shared my frustration with the "new improved" Blogger interface. For the last year or so, since their last "improvement," it has taken twice as many clicks, or maybe more, to do things that we used to be able to do much more efficiently. For instance, when I am told on my Reading List page that Uta Lenk has a new blog post, and I click on it, I no longer am taken to her blog. Instead, I get a message that says:
I have to wonder whether Google has decided that blogs are obsolete, and therefore not worth supporting in the style that we have become accustomed to. (Blogger is still a pretty decent platform, but it used to be much better, for most of the 12 years I have had my blog.) I might even think that they're trying to get us to abandon our blogs and switch over to Instagram -- except that Instagram is owned by Facebook.
So here's the latest development: Google is discontinuing the Feedburner feature that allows readers to get blogs delivered straight to their email rather than navigating to the internet page. I think that a lot more of my readers use email delivery than do it the old-fashioned way, so this is a problem. I would be upset, and I hope you might be too, if suddenly you simply didn't receive your blog and didn't know how to remedy the situation.
I wonder whether other blog owners have made a decision about how to replace Feedburner. I've received solicitations from an outfit called follow.it, but wonder if there's another alternative that might be better. Rather than go down the frustrating rabbit hole of internet research, which will certainly reveal that every conceivable competitor is FABULOUS, I will call for help and see if any of you have experience and advice in this area. Thank you!!
I don't know about blogs from the production side, but, to read blogs, i use a free app called Feedly. I put all the blogs in one place and they are there when I'm ready to read them.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean. Google/Blogger is driving me nuts with their changes. Now I'm getting notices that my type is too small, but when I view it on my tablet, phone, or computer it looks fine. I don't know what they want me to do. You're right, it was better years ago.
ReplyDeleteI’ve been using Bloglovin and it seems to interface nicely, too. It’s a separate app because I read the blogs I follow each morning and didn’t want them clogging up my email.
ReplyDeleteI share your frustrations and I haven't decided what to do about the email issue. I'm not very techie, and it really annoys me that they've done this.
ReplyDeleteI've used The Old Reader as a one-stop site for reading blogs for years. Free and allows you to add really a lot of blog feeds before you have to start paying (and I know everyone wants to make us believe blogs and bloggers are a dying breed but there are still a ton of them out there). As for the feedburner thing, I don't think I have many if any readers using it and have recommended that any who do, sign up for a feed reader like The Old Reader. There is a site that compares 4 different options for a feedburner replacement and Follow It looked like the best option for me, but as I said, I'm not sure it's worth it for me to figure out when readers can more easily consolidate their blog reading on something like The Old Reader or Bloglovin. Here's that comparison site: https://feedburner-alternatives.com And yes, the constant and not always good changes Blogger makes, especially recently, make me sigh, but then I remind myself it is a free platform that still works ok for me. (And someone in the blogger community helped me solve a problem I couldn't figure out on my own after one their unannounced changes - the solution was in the template where I never would have thought to look.) If one really can't take it, I'm guessing Word Press is the way to go. I know many bloggers I follow have made that change, but from a reader's perspective, I find Wordpress not as friendly as Blogger.
ReplyDeleteI prefer to have emails so that everything I look at is in the same place (except for Youtube, which did the same thing and never told anyone).It really annoys me that they are doing this.I didn't know about it either: thanks for the warning Kathy, it took me several weeks for me to work out why I wasn't receiving email notifications from Youtube!
ReplyDeleteI have a link to my dashboard. On the left side it shows a link to my reading list and I read from there. I suspect many don't have a desktop but I will have a hard time giving mine up.
ReplyDeleteI have a recent quilting blogger (D. Kravotil) that went ahead and took the plunge on "followit.com' so far it's worked for me- the instructions were easy, just fyi.
ReplyDeleteArrggh...I feel your pain. To see your blog I go to my "reading list" at the bottom of my blog and click as you show on your example. Don't know how to keep up with people who follow me. I keep thinking "no more free lunch"?
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