The Sunday Salon used to be a meme but was getting so huge it became unmanageable, so it is now a Facebook group that has become an informal week in review
gathering place for bloggers.
It is also a place to share our thoughts about things of a bookish nature.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Google continues to “retire” products that we as bloggers have come to depend on. This week it was announced the Google Reader will cease to exist July 1, 2013. Hoping to ease our pain they have devised a thing called “Google Takeout” so we can download our subscribers and subscriptions for an “alternative feed-reading solution”. This creates a download archive but no direction on how to use it. I have been unable to open any part of the zip file downloaded to my computer to notify my subscribers of this upcoming change or to transfer to my subscriptions to any other feed reader. I knew this was coming when they took away Google Friend Connect last year. It would be nice if Google could understand that all bloggers are not computer gurus and would provide a bit more information about the “Takeout” option. There are several other Feed Reader options – Carolyn at Book Chick City has posted a few suggestions for other Readers in her blog post here.
If you click on the orange RSS button on most blogs there are a few different choices for Readers but they will involve setting up another new account. I will probably be transferring to a Yahoo Account myself. If you have any tips on transferring my subscriptions or opening the “Takeout” information from Google please leave them in the comments. Together we can get through anything Google throws at us.
Weekly Rewind
Monday – It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.
Tuesday – Review – Six Years
Wednesday – Kari Lee Townsend was my guest for Cozy Wednesday. I am giving away 2 copies of her book Trouble in the Tarot (A Fortune Teller Mystery).
Thursday – The Virtual Book Tour for A Bullet For Carlos: Blood Flows South, Book 1
Plus The Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop kicked off. I am giving some great books away.
Friday – Review: Nickeled-and-Dimed to Death: A Devereaux’s Dime Store Mystery
Saturday – I shined the spotlight on Sweet Tea Revenge (A Tea Shop Mystery)
I hope you all have a wonderful week!
I’m going to try that Feedly as my RSS feed.
I have not found a suitable replacement for GR. Feedly is the best so far out of the 7 or so I have tried out, but it is still subpar compared to GR. It’s frustrating.
To transfer your subscriptions via Google Takeout, open up the folder, take out the file labeled “subscriptions” and transfer that to wherever. For me, it was Feedly…at least, for now. I’m also testing NetVibes, but not as aggressively, because it takes a lot more work. With Feedly, it says an OPML (?) file is needed. That is the xml file of the subscriptions file.
Thanks Bryan, I will try that!!!
Oops. That’s for Netvibes. For Feedly, it should transfer automatically. I think Feedly is going to transfer them automatically.
Feedly was a seamless transfer. Almost too easy!
But I believe that would work for other services besides NetVibes too.
I have never used Google Reader…I’ve gone there a couple of times and felt overwhelmed by the sheer numbers! lol
I prefer e-mail subscriptions.
I know not everyone likes that…and it does mean the inbox is often full, too, but I can skip the ones I don’t want to read on a given day.
Hope you find something you like, though. I’ve noticed that Google is constantly changing or retiring things. I use iGoogle as my home page, and that allows me to add RSS feeds that I can immediately see when I open the page. But that’s retiring this year, too, with no acceptable alternative.
Yahoo changed it’s format, too, so having that as a home page is not appealing to me, either. Egads!
We’re at the mercy of these providers. Good luck on finding a solution.
Here’s MY SUNDAY SALON POST
Im sorry to see Google Reader go..but Ive seen my “Bloglovin” membership grow recently…I used to have a Yahoo account, but it got “hacked”..and I have seen several of my friends yahoo accounts get hacked too…. =(
Personally, I transferred to Feedly, and it’s working great for me so far. Theoretically, the transition should be seamless. Just log in with Google-reader account and viola! all of my GR feeds are already in Feedly. Good luck with your GR retirement compensation.
My Sunday Salon
I’ve switched to BlogLovin – it took one click to transfer all my google feeds over and its simple to use 🙂