Ahh... the world must be coming to an end. This is what I saw on twitter Wednesday night.
"...the end of Google Reader means GFC too?"
"Drink every time someone says 'Google Reader' or 'Bloglovin'' today."
"I'm over here just randomly signing up for feeds because I don't know what to do with myself."
"It's unfortunate that Google Reader will be closing on July 1st..."
"Goodbye Google Reader, hello Bloglovin'..."
"Boo no more GFC & Google Reader as of July 1st. How do you follow blogs?"
"For real? OMG!"
"...I'll be devastated."
"...such a pain."
After reading through a whole bunch of crazy bloggers freaking out I knew I needed to do some research. You all were acting crazy, don't deny.
After much research I still have no idea what, if anything, is going to happen to GFC.
But, Google Reader will be no more come July 1st.
My guess why so many of you are mad, frustrated, or angry is because you will lose your GFC follower number as well as a possible decrease in page views. To me, the GFC follower number means absolutely nothing to me. 'You're only saying that because you don't have that many followers. Us bloggers with over 1000 followers do not want to lose that number.' If you just thought any of that in your head, you are insane. But I will be upset if my page views declines drastically.
Now I have never used Google Reader and honestly I didn't know there was a difference between Google Reader and GFC. To many non-blogger followers, the loss of Google Reader will definitely challenge things. They will have to find another alternative to the original RSS/Google Reader.
For example, I just added the 'follow by email' gadget to my sidebar. That way my posts will be sent directly to your email inbox without having to do anything else.
Or you can sign up with Bloglovin' like everyone else. I jumped on that bandwagon too just so I can get familiar with it in case anything does happen with GFC.
Lastly, you can just sign up with Skimr, which is an RSS reader that is super simple to use.
All you have to do is enter the website you want to follow and it has a similar format to Google Reader. However, if you want the author of the blog to know you are following them, Skimr is not a good option. Go with something like Bloglovin'.
I will be using Skimr from now on because I like the format of it. I will also use
Bloglovin' so all you wonderful bloggers know I am following you.
Even after using both of those, I will keep GFC until the death of it.
If you follow me via Google Reader, I would appreciate it if you continued to follow me either by email (check sidebar) or Bloglovin'. Leave me a comment below letting me know you followed via Bloglovin' so I can follow back.
At the end of the day, life goes on and we must adapt to the changes.
But I do not think GFC is going anywhere! Just yet.
Am I an automatic hipster because I am blogger?
Or because I wear these glasses and am a blogger?