Thursday, June 27, 2013

Goodbye Google Reader

Good morning!

Just wanted to drop in real quick and remind you (or inform you if you haven’t heard) that Google Reader will be discontinued as of June 30th…that’s this Sunday.  If you are following me or any other blogs using Google Reader you need to move them to another blog reader before then.

I love Google Reader and was so upset when I found out Google was getting rid of it.  I love having all of my favorite blogs in one place where I can read them all at once and not have to remember to check them.  I love having new posts right at my finger tips as soon as they are posted.  So, of course, I went on a mission to find something similar.  Here is my experience…

I started using Bloglovin a few weeks ago and have been very happy with it.  You can click on the Bloglovin bar on the left sidebar of my blog to subscribe to my blog thru that.  It is also very easy to switch all of the blogs you read on Google Reader with a few simple clicks.  You just need to create an account and it will ask you if you want to import your blogs from Google Reader, say yes and it does all the work for you.  You can also choose to import from the settings tab.  It even imports all of your organization, so if you have all your blogs in groups it will import that as well.  Super easy! 

Bloglovin Capture

This is what the screen looks like.  It’s very easy to read and I love the different options right at my fingertips.  I use the “like” button often, especially when I read something I want to find again quickly.  I can go in and just click on “liked posts” and there are all the posts I have “saved” to view later.  You can choose to group your posts by blog or by date.  I prefer date, but the group by blog comes in handy when you want to focus on one blog.

Bloglovin has an app for your phone (iphone and Android) and ipad as well, which I love, since I read most of my favorite blogs on the go.  I like that the app is very similar to the computer version, so you don’t need to relearn how to use the app.  I hate that…just saying. 

You can also choose to have an email sent to you with updated blog posts, or one per day of that days posts for all the blogs you read.  I kinda like that, too.  I am not one for filling up my inbox, but I like having one email at the end of my day with all the latest blog posts in one easy place to read.

Just to be fair, I will also mention Feedly blog subscriber.  I tried it first before Bloglovin, but I don’t know, it just didn’t fit me as well as Bloglovin did.  It also imports all of your blogs from Google Reader effortlessly.  You can learn more about that here.

I know there are probably more blog readers available, but those were the two that I tried.  If you know of any others, please share.

Have you already switched from Google Reader?  What was your experience?  What do you use to read your favorite blogs?  I would love to know.

2 comments:

Jennifer said...

Hi Karen,
I've switched to Bloglovin and I really like it to. I'm a happy follower! :)
Jennifer

Shaz in Oz.CalligraphyCards said...

Hi Karen I dont use readers as such but use my dashboard but had a question:

- do I indeed to ave a button to allow those who want to use Bloglovin' to do so??

- or can they chose to do with any blog irrespective of there being a button?

Hope you dont mind me asking.

Thanks very much, Shaz in Oz.x