Wednesday, May 22, 2013

UPDATED! New Question!! and a big thanks and blogger advice needed

FYI, the new question has been added at the bottom of this post, in dark red font. 
Today I discovered that I now have 888 followersWOW!  What a cool number!  That's a lot of people taking a peek now and then to see what I am up to.  I am very appreciative of all of you, more than I can say.  Thanks for stopping by!
 
And now, since I have your attention (maybe) I need your help.  Let me explain: I've been doing my best to ignore the changes (doom and gloom) that are coming down the pike, in relation to using Blogger.  Avoidance has been easy, but I know I can't avoid much longer.  In fact, I have discovered that perhaps I've waited too long.

Unlike many of you, at the time I didn't really care much about the loss of the Google reader, or whatever the name of it is/was, (it's gone already; it left when I wasn't paying attention) because honestly, I only used it when I wanted to hunt for something.  Otherwise, I pretty much use the Dashboard to see what's been newly posted, and if there's something I want to find my way back to, I pin it on my Pinterest page.  However there are some things from way back that I wish I could still find, but... oh well.   And I am pretty clueless about some of the stuff you guys were recommending as a replacement (Bloglovin? etc) and of course, since I  no longer have the Google reader to search for what you were saying, I can't find your advice and recommendations any more.  Dumb of me to wait so long...  I have just spent an hour scrolling through old posts on the Dashboard to try to find what everyone was saying, and with no way to filter the posts, I never found what I was looking for.  So I need some solid advice, written in a way that someone (me) with absolutely NO comprehension about downloading and other technical whoop-de-doo will understand.

And aside from the need to find a new reader so that I can do searches, there was something else happening / changing  (when?) having to do with blogs that are not Blogger blogs.  Will they all be gone from my Dashboard at some point?  How do I prevent that?  (I have some that I don't want to lose track of.)  And what the heck is Google + and do I want it?  Why? What will it do differently than what I've been doing these past three years?  HELP!  I'm feeling very dumb right now, and I will very much appreciate your help.  I'm feeling a bit alone here in my technophobia.

Here's the update: 
So, friends,  I now am signed on to Bloglovin', but am already a little flummoxed.  The Google reader had a search option, where you searched through the blogs you follow for a specific word/topic - for example "Chihuly" or  "color wheel" etc.  Then you could highlight them and get back to them easily.  Bloglovin' has a nice clean format, but as far as I can see, the search option on Bloglovin' searches every damn blog it can find (not just what I follow), thus making it impossible to find that post you are looking for.  I couldn't figure out how to search as I did on Google reader.  Any advice?  Do I need to try Feedly instead?  And what does it mean to 'claim' your blog?  Why would I want to/need to do that?

12 comments:

  1. I've been trying out bloglovin. It even sends me an email every night with posts from blogs I follow. It let me import my list from google.

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  2. i follow you on bloglovin :) it's easy and you can follow any blog you want.

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  3. 2 months ago, Marcia, at Art is Basic posted that Reader would be leaving us July 1. She mentioned Feedly, but I see that she seems to be using Bloglovin' on her site now. Perhaps that is the post you were searching for. I haven't decided what to do yet -- I'm waiting for school to end and then I'll figure it out. However, several blogs seem to have switched easily to Bloglovin' and right now I think that is what I will be trying. I hope some more of your readers respond so I can make a more informed choice!! Thanks for writing about this.

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  4. I switched to Feedly after a detailed NYT review and I like it because it accepts all the "blogs that are not Blogger blogs" and is easier to read and edit your blog list than other readers. (I tried 3) The New York Times reviewed all the readers in preparation for Google Reader shut down and they said Feedly was much better than any other reader. Basically that no other reader compared to Feedly! I have been hearing the same thing from non-art related people as well.

    I started a Google+ account when it first opened and after (3?) years just deleted it. Never used it.

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  5. Okay, I did two posts about this back in March. See here:

    http://drawthelineat.blogspot.com/2013/03/google-friend-connect-google-reader.html

    and

    http://drawthelineat.blogspot.com/2013/03/update-google-friend-connect-google.html

    Basically what I ended up doing was joining bloglovin. I really like it. You can read post from any blog that you choose to follow. I did end up joining Google + much to my displeasure. Basically, google + is the epitome of facebook from google. But hey, some people really like it. So now people can follow my blog on either bloglovin or on Google +.

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  6. Thanks everyone! As of today, I'm giving bloglovin' a try. Supposedly Google reader is still available until July 1, but I seriously could not find it any more. Weird... I'll let you know how it works out with bloglovin'!

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  7. just another vote for Feedly... :) I like the clean look of it more so than Bloglovin'. Feedly is easy to use and I like it much better than google reader!

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    1. Just went to the Feedly site, and it had a button to use get it with firefox (which is the browser I use on my desktop computer and laptop) but am curious what will happen if I try to use it on my iPad, where I actually do a lot of my blog reading. Hmmm. I didn't come across anything like that on Bloglovin' but haven't looked at it yet on my iPad. The frustration continues...

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  8. Hi Phyl, I have a few comments for you....Google Reader is still around until July 1. That means even if you don't decide right now, transfer you google reader feed to Feedly and Bloglovin, that way you will have all the blog you follow in both (after July 1 you will not be able to do that) and you can decide later! Also, there is a NEW reader called "The Old Reader" www.theoldreader.com. I will tell you it was a little more difficult to transfer the blogs, because you actually have to download a file, but you might like the look and feel of it...very simple! Good luck, Susan

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  9. Yikes, I should be paying attention too!

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  10. Phyl-I use Feedly and love it--don't have to open a new page in Safari if there is a link in a blog that I am reading. I tried out Bloglovin too and you do open a new page in safari for every link. I guess I just find that annoying. There is an app for both of these for use on the iPad where I also do my blog reading. Also on Feedly there is the option to save pages/blog posts to go back to. You can also bookmark/save stuff from other website that a blog post may link to. I love this feature as I want to be able to go back to things at a later date.
    Good luck in your search for the perfect replacement.

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