Monday, April 19, 2021

I’m In The Dark

When it comes to coding or anything to do with Blogger, I’m completely in the dark.

An example of this is I’m still trying to figure out the new Blogger style. When I put a photo in, it makes the print next to it so small I have to go back and make it the largest font and then it looks strange. (See what I mean by looking at the first paragraph.)

Well, that darkness just got a lot blacker recently with the following notice.

FollowByEmail widget (Feedburner) is going away
You are receiving this information because your blog uses the FollowByEmail widget (Feedburner).
Recently, the Feedburner team released a system update announcement , that the email subscription service will be discontinued in July 2021.
After July 2021, your feed will still continue to work, but the automated emails to your subscribers will no longer be supported. If you’d like to continue sending emails, you can download your subscriber contacts. Learn how

 
I’m sure many or most of you have received the same announcement. I don’t have a clue what to do. I followed the instruction and downloaded my email subscription list, but it looks like Greek to me.

Can anyone break this down into plain English for me (and possible others)? I’m not sure what to do now. Is there another service where readers can get the post sent to them or be notified there is a post? What other ways are there to be notified that a new post has gone live?

Thanks so much for stopping by today. I’m sorry I’m in a “pity party” mood about this, but it is SO  confusing to me and I don’t want to lose any of you. Can anyone help?

20 comments:

  1. I also (as you know) got that email. Most of my followers find me through GFC and either the reading list on blogger's dashboard (which has some issues of its own) or through blogs listed on their side bar.
    Sadly a few do rely on the email advice, so I will have to find a way. MailChimp is one option but I need to explore further.
    And the list I downloaded had lots and lots and lots of names, most of which were totally unfamiliar to me. If the vast majority of them disappear I will not mind (or notice). For the sake of the few I need to investigate further.

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    1. E.C., I know what you mean about the download list. I downloaded my list and it has so many names and emails that I don't recognize. A lot of the emails look a little strange. Hopefully we'll have a better way.

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  2. Hi Mason - re your photos ... I now - post my typing with lots of spaces between paragraphs - then put in photos and drag to place I want ... then review! - then delete extra spaces ... If I've got the small writing I delete and start again with that extra space. It's a pain - but it works. Also occasionally I'll use a different text size - or type type for that paragraph of typing that's not quite right ... you can spot it occasionally in my blog posts. It also does it by itself sometimes. I give up - and as long as it looks ok ... I've given up worrying.

    Re the email - I can see it's paining everyone ... I haven't yet looked ... but will bear in mind what others are saying ...

    Good luck - and don't fret too much!! Cheers Hilary

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    1. Hilary, Blogger does tend to have me fretting too much lately. I'm going to give your way of posting a try. Thanks for the suggestion.

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  3. I switched from Feedburner to Mailchimp several years ago. It's free up to 2,000 subscribers. It's pretty simple to set up once you have downloaded your contacts from Feedburner into a cvs file. There are also plenty of people out there who will help you set it up for a small fee.

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  4. I haven't even tried. I follow most through Feedly.
    Do a Google search for the answer. Someone has found a solution somewhere.

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    1. Alex, I need to go back to Feedly again. Firefox gave me a bit of problem the last time I used it, hopefully it will work better this time.

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  5. Sometimes those 'improvements' aren't improvements at all, Mason. I really wish I could help, but I use WordPress, which has a different way for people to follow the blog. I know the whole thing can be maddening. Hope you get it worked out.

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    1. Margot, I have given some serious thought to changing over to WordPress. I need to check into it more.

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  6. I have the same problem with the text changing when I put in a picture. I can't always fix it. I missed the problem with feedburner ending. I know some of my followers follow by email so that's going to be a problem. Let us know if you figure it out.

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    1. Natalie, hopefully we'll all find a better solution.

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  7. I hear ya! I don't have a clue what to do about FeedBurner and I'm thinking I'm just going to ignore it :)

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  8. I hear you too! I use feedburner --- to allow email subscriptions! And I've been looking. So far the only thing I found it signing up with something like MailChimp. The thing with that, which I don't like, is you have to add your address and it displays on all you emails, which is a privacy issue for me.

    I did download the email subscribers. As of first now, I will post in June saying that feature is going away and recommending people follow with Feedly or Bloglovin' or something.

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    1. MASON! I asked for help on Twitter and found these guys! https://follow.it/ -- They are free and will allow you to import your current email subscribers.

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    2. Holly, thanks for the link I'll check it out. I agree with you about the privacy issue.

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    3. I finally got to it myself. I signed up and have it set on my blog now. It's pretty clean. It's another way to follow rss feeds in general, but they do the email subscriptions.

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    4. Me again! The deliver is different. Feedburner sent the entire post to the inbox, but it looks like follow.it only sends a link to your post. Still it's something.

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  9. Here's a link to an article I found that compares all the alternatives, including follow it. Please let me know what you think. This will be my first time installing anything like this because my old blog partner did those things. Here's the link:https://www.feedburner-alternatives.com/

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I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's post. Thanks for dropping by.