Google Reader and Bloglovin'

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Well.   I log in to my Google Reader (after too long an absence) only to discover that Google is whipping said Reader out from under our feet!  Starting July 1, no more Google Reader!  :(   People have had some nice things to say about Bloglovin', so I thought I'd give it a whirl - with just a tad bit of research, it turns out to be pretty easy to transfer all of your blogs over, and add a Bloglovin' widget. (this is specific to blogspot blogs - I think the process for wordpress is similar though)

Here are the steps:

1. You will need to sign up with Bloglovin' at bloglovin.com   I only saw two options - sign up via email, or through your facebook account.
2. You now need to "Claim" your blog by going to "Account", and "my blog" - type your blog name in to the box (or click on it, if your blog name shows up in the drop down menu)
3. Copy and paste the link into a new blog post on your blog
4. Go back to bloglovin.com and click on "Claim your blog"   This should verify your blog, and the link should show up in your blog post.  (this is the link that is showing up at the top of this post)  

To add a bloglovin widget in a blogspot blog, bloglovin' has made the process easy as it could possibly be!

1. Under your Account in bloglovin.com, select "add a Follow button"
2. A page will open with a variety of bloglovin' icons.  Choose one and click on "select this icon"
3. A window will pop up that says "Add Widget".   Click on the Add Widget, and your Layout page for your blog will automatically pop up.   The bloglovin' widget will be at the top of your widget column.  Simply drag it to the location you want, Save, and you're done!

Bloglovin appears to show only the first paragraph of a new post, so you need to click through in order to read the entire post, but other than that, it appears to be much like Google Reader - yay!

Now to figure out how & where to save all of my favorite "starred" posts that I wanted to have as handy references.....

An aside:  I haven't been a very active blogger lately, (but I HAVE been sewing!), and sewing posts will follow, as soon as I organize myself and get some actual pictures taken....

Meanwhile, happy sewing and blogging, and remember that the only constant in life is change, so we might as well enjoy the changes as best we can :)

EDIT:  badmomgoodmom added this info in the comments as a way to store your starred items (note:  it isn't working for me on my Mac, [yet], but if I figure it out I'll add that info too):

"http://www.dataliberation.org/google/reader

then click on:
this link  ...(that's what it says when you get there)...

then go to:
https://www.google.com/takeout/?pli=1
login with your Google email and passwd

Select Choose Services tab at the top of the page.
Select Google Reader and build archive.
Wait for it to build a file of all of your reader data.
Then download the file (mine was 5.3MB) to your own computer.

Your blog subscriptions are in xml.
The rest of the stuff is in json (JavaScript Object Notation) and can be read by many other programs. (I heard that Chrome can read json, but haven't tried that yet.)"

Another Note (from me) on the starred items:  I also downloaded Feedly, and discovered that the Starred items from Google Reader show up automatically in Feedly!   I may do another post with my own feelings about the differences after I've played with feedly and bloglovin for a bit.....