Saturday, March 16, 2013

DO YOU READ YOUR BLOGS OF INTEREST IN GOOGLE READER?


I was shocked this week to find that Google have decided to scrap Google Reader on July 1st. I have been using Google Reader longer than I have been writing a blog, and that has been surprisingly over 6 years now. What that means for people like me is that I need to find an alternative reader. As yet I have not decided which one I will choose. But what it does mean for people who read my blog is that if you use Google Reader, you will also need to change to a different reader as well. When you become a 'follower' on a blog hosted by Blogger, posts made on those blogs automatically come up in your Google Reader. Today I have added a 'Follow by Email' option in the side bar here. The big advantage of using a reader is that if someone posted something and you want to go back and read it again, you don't have to trawl through their blog to find what you are looking for. Google's excuse is that Google Reader has become less popular. By the protests across the net you would not think this is correct. I have a few blogs I read in Reader that I have not added links to here. At some point I will get around to adding them to the list of links. 

I enjoyed watching the video about the recreation of the Hunt of the Unicorn series woven at West Dean. Beautiful colours and such superb fine detail.      

12 comments:

  1. First time commenter, but I have followed your on greader. Iswitched over to feedly after yesterday's announcement. So far I like it much better and my feeds all transferred over.3529 rninfgfv

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  2. Hi Valerie, thanks for the tip! I will try it out. Now I just need a replacement for my i Google homepage. That expires in November. Makes me wonder when they will decide to change Blogger?

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  3. Hmm...my i Google home page expired this past November and I switched to Protopage (www.protopage.com) for my home page at that time. I just put my news feeds and my google calendar on that (and a couple of comic strips).

    I think what google really wants is to get people to move to googleplus as their social media page so they can compete w/ facebook there. I don't do facebook. The only social media I will do is ravelry.

    You're right..they might do something w/ blogger. I'll cross that bridge when they force me to.
    PS: those numbers and letters at the end of my last post were the captcha code. oops...

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  4. The follow by email quite often goes to "feedburner" and I hear that that is going as well :(

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  5. Try The Old Reader. Very much like Google Reader before it changed its format. I'm switching over and so far so good!

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  6. Hi Valerie, I had a quick look at Protopage,thanks for the tip!

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  7. Hi Phillipa, I used feedburner in the past. So many options out there. There is a lesson maybe in changing to all Google. Once they decide to delete services you have to find an alternative.

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  8. Hi Angela, I had a quick look at The Old Reader. It seems to be a lot like the old Google one. Thanks for the info.

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  9. Hi Debbie,

    After reading your post about this, I have been investigating what options are available... here is a link to an article that lists several options to consider--

    http://www.extremetech.com/computing/101011-6-google-reader-replacements

    The same website has an interesting article about the issues of putting all of one's eggs into the "Google basket"--

    http://www.extremetech.com/computing/89628-too-many-eggs-in-the-google-basket

    For now, I have just moved my Reader subscriptions to Feedly, which has a very attractive look. I'll figure out whether I like it once I start using it a little more, but one caveat mentioned in the article is that Feedly uses Google Reader as its "back end" since it is a third party app. It is unknown at this point whether Feedly will lose its functionality when Reader goes away. Feedly says nothing on their website about it.

    In investigating the iGoogle dilemma, here are a few articles which discuss alternatives I am currently pondering--

    http://www.howtogeek.com/129155/6-alternatives-to-igoogle-for-personalized-homepages/

    http://www.cultofandroid.com/19623/google-now-coming-to-chrome-possible-igoogle-replacement/

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/2010900/ighome-gives-displaced-igoogle-users-a-familiar-home.html

    http://dreamcore.net/google/10-igoogle-replacement-alternative/

    Sigh. It takes a lot of work to stay technologically current in order not to become a 20th century fossil, doesn't it?

    Lyn

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  10. Hi Deb, I have heard rumblings from very unhappy people too. I will have to do some investigating - I am so over having to learn new things as soon as I get a handle on how things are currently done! Don't know what I will do if they scrap Blogger.
    Thanks to all the people who have commented, I now know where to go to do my homework, not that I want to do it!!!!

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  11. Wow Lyn thanks! I finally had the time to go through the links that you posted. I tried the old reader but it did not import my feeds in "folders" that I like to keep them in. I also tried feedly. It seems nice and did import my feeds where I wanted them. I suppose I just hate change! When I traveled a lot of the time I could always log into my i google homepage and have everything I wanted to look at. Sometimes internet cafes have short and expensive sessions, so I hate the idea or searching. I am trying out http://www.ighome.com/ as an alternative to igoogle. It seems to have a lot of the same features. Thanks again and yes it does take a lot to keep up with stuff. I did notice that feedly have an app for Kindle but it must only be available in the US

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  12. Hi Mary, yes I agree I hate change. My i google homepage was the first thing I see on the computer each day.

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