Today is, rarely, a bad day for bloggers. Today is the day that Google Reader is being switched off by those people at Google.
What it means is that the primary way that some people read blogs is not going to be available to them. Clever-dick readers will already have switched to another server. (I’m using Feedly). The worry is that non-Clever-dick readers (I’m using technical terms here) will just not bother or not rememeber in time and end up reading less blog posts as a result. Loss of readers is a bad day for bloggers.
Lots of people are cross with Google for turning off Google Reader. But it has been a service free at the point of delivery (funded by advertising and giving Google and insight into what one is interested in). I think that makes it harder to complain.
Some people can’t cope with the bother of using a reader service to aggregate or collect all their blog entries. For them, the joy of email is still the best way of ensuring that they don’t miss a blog post.
I’ve got a simple service that allows people to sign up to receive my blog posts by email and you can sign up here.
Don’t be shy!
And for goodness sake, sign up with Feedly or something similar too. Shake that magic Google dust from off your sandals. It is time to move on.
If you want to be reminded of why it is a good thing to use a reader in the first place, read my description of why you should have signed up to Google reader in the first place.
You can find it here: How to Read Blogs
And for good measure, here’s what I said about Google Reader’s demise previously: Google Reader RIP
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