Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Weird Test Thing I'm Doing

I'm so pissed off about how new blog readers are making it seem like, in the absence of Google Reader, no one's gonna be able to find your blog unless you advertise on their behalf. I joined Bloglovin' years ago, decided it was meh, removed the link to it on my blog, and didn't think about it again till this June. (I'll remind you of my early adopter status :-))

Then, in the interests of science - or giving people an easy-click way to follow, I decided to upload the Bloglovin' link on my blog again. I didn't talk about it. I am confident that, if you like to read my blog - what with it living on the internet - there are ways for you to find it.

However, I cannot claim my own blog on Bloglovin'. Now, that seems weird - and probably not important - except that I'm intrigued to know if posting this:

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

...will allow me to do so.

If yes, that kind of seems like extortion, no?

Updated: Thanks for feedback, everyone. For your info, this action enabled me to "claim my blog" (like I don't do that every time I write something!).

17 comments:

  1. I see your new posts on MPB's sidebar. I clicked on your link, and now I'm following you on Bloglovin.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Totally. Add Bloglovin to your stupid list.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i think it has to do with verifying that you have authority to post on said blog you are claiming... but yeah, it's kinda weird/awkward that they make you post it. seems like there could be a better way. however, i've been using bloglovin' and find it mostly reliable and yeah, it is super convenient to click the bloglovin' button on sidebars to add a new blog to my reader!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think they just want the link so they can verify you own the blog - you can make it an invisible one if you want. Or a dot. Or a pixel.

    I agree with the meh status btw. I don't really like it either, tried it for about an hour and gave up.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm another non-fan of bloglovin'. I started to try feedly, but decided that my current setup (the brief extension for Firefox) was better than any of them. And with the ability to Sync Firefox, I'm not going to bother with using one of the others.

    I did wonder how I could claim my blog on bloglovin' without an account. I saw no reason to set one up when I wasn't planning to use the service. So do let me know if just posting the link is all it takes to claim it. Not sure what difference it makes if I do or don't, so if you know, that would be great too.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'd migrated everything to Bloglovin' before Google Reader shut, just because it was so easy, but yeah, I really hate all the advertising so many of us are doing for these various services. On the other hand, I guess, they are services, and, so far, free. . . . btw, I've been picking you up through Bloglovin' for months now, easily. Don't love it, but it works. . .

    ReplyDelete
  7. I actually added the link to an old post, hit update, and was able to claim my blog without writing a whole post about it. Maybe it means I didn't get an on rush of new followers through Bloglovin', but I'm okay with that!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OK, that is smart! I should have thought of that. Of course, I wonder if, if I delete this post, my blog claim will disappear?

      Delete
    2. You can always add it to an old post and change the text color to white. It's the coding that's important, not the visible text.

      Delete
  8. If I want to follow a new site I just cut and paste their url or their name in the search feature at the top of the main Bloglovin page and then select it from the search results. That's how I'm following a lot of new sites that don't have a noticeable link on their sites.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's what I do too - and great idea about adding the code to an old post in white!

      Delete
  9. Oh, I was following your blog via bloglovin' before you posted it on your blog, so it worked just to copy and paste the name of your blog into bloglovin'.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, I do understand that's possible. That's what I do when I subscribe to other blogs. I just don't like that Bloglovin' makes it seem like, if you don't advertise on their behalf, your readers are gonna disappear. The reader is simply an aggregator. Any will do and I don't like that the individual readers try to convince people otherwise.

      Delete
    2. I have been thinking about making the move to Feedly. I have heard good things by a few sewing bloggers about it.

      Delete
  10. Oh I detest Bloglovin, but slightly less than Feedly, so in the fallout from Google's crass stupidity in closing Reader, I just have to suck it up. Sigh! It's the lesser of available evils, IMO.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'm a little late to the party, but I had already sync'd my google reader with bloglovin and feedly (which I prefer) before they took GR off life support. I can't figure out how to comment on blogs when reading through bloglovin' so there is just weirdness all around. On the other hand, I can't figure out how to "claim my blog" on feedly. Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I was hoping for a sneaky doppelgänger pretending to be you!

    ReplyDelete