Monday, June 24, 2013

Get ready for some Bloglovin


It's no secret that Google Reader will be no more this time next week and varying levels of panic have ensued in the blogger communities. I had initial blood pressure rising for about 5 minutes when I saw the announcement and then gave myself a stern talking to, looked at the alternatives and promptly switched to Bloglovin to read my favourite blogs.

I made this switch as soon as I heard that Bloglovin would eventually be no more so decided not to take advantage of the import of my reading list (although from other bloggers it seems quick and simple to do) and use it as a decluttering exercise - although more seem to have been added than removed!

In the couple of months I've been using Bloglovin I have to say I have only one complaint in that I can't tag blogs to file and star to read later in the same way I would in Google Reader. I'll often look at blogs quickly whilst at work or out and about and want to read in detail later. You can mark posts as unread but I prefer to acknowledge they've been read and use the 'like' option although I do feel bad when I click 'unlike' having read in full.

There is no way of filing posts via Bloglovin unfortunately so it's a case of printing, making notes and/or filing in a bookmarks folder but I've managed to work round that without too much disappointment. 

I love that you can comment directly within Bloglovin's website, something that wasn't possible on Google Reader. I prefer commenting on blogs via my MacBook as I prefer a keyboard to type on than the iPad so it makes it a quick process. Something of note for Blogger bloggers; if you had a comment page which replaced the blogs page itself (ie does not appear at the bottom of the post or in a pop up window) then it will bring up an error in Bloglovin. I get around this by right clicking on the 'post a comment' link to open in a new tab or window but not everyone will or know to do this. I myself had to change the settings on my blog to allow easier commenting for my readers.

Another accidental discovery on the iPad and iPhone apps was that if you pull the page up as you reach the end of a post the next in sequence from your reading list will appear - this is certainly making on the go reading easier.

You claim your blog quite easily and Bloglovin have various widgets available for bloggers to add to posts so people can easily add your blog to their reading lists - you'll notice one now appears at the bottom of each of my posts but a simple word search seems to bring up most of the blogs I've been looking for lately.

There seems to be a change in the way the blogging community read blogs since my early days when readers were King now there are so many social media platform allowing us to Tweet or Facebook our links. I find myself reading many blogs via a tweeted link but Bloglovin is still essential to make sure you never miss a post and there are many ways to discover new blogs through looking at the popular posts pages, recommendations etc.

Of course the panic doesn't end there, there is much confusion around GFC (Google Friends Connect) and from what I can gather this is not due for retirement on 1st July with Google Reader but my hunches tell me that it won't be too far behind with Google+ being the platform they are pushing everyone towards, that said if anyone knows how the hell we're supposed to be using it please give me an idiots guide because I do not have a clue!

It would be great if you join me over at Bloglovin by clicking here or the button below - the other great thing about Bloglovin is that unless the subscriber requests to do so privately you will be emailed to notify you or your new 'follower' and in some cases find a new blog to read.

Follow on Bloglovin




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4 comments:

  1. I'm also with bloglovin'. I wasn't much use using Google reader so goodness knows how long it will take for me to get used to this one! lol Sue x

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  2. Its a pain for sure. I've got Bloglovin' but also recently tried feedly when it popped up on my taskbar as I use Chrome. Thats not too bad, will have to give them both a try.

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  3. Completely agree with all your points. When they announced GReader was going, I moved over to Feedly, and liked it, but when it moved to its own cloud last week, half my feeds didn't move, so I got cold feet and hurried over to Bloglovin.

    Like it so far, but really miss the 'tag' option.

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  4. Ooh I think I've managed to cross over to ' the other side', hopefully. Complete technophobe here.

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