I’m not counting this as a blog post… although it is. I’m counting this as a test post because I’ve made a change in RSS email feed for those who are presently subscribing via Feedburner. That’s the preamble; now the short article… for someone like me. 🙂
Follow.it
During the period of time last week when I published my article on online privacy, I was working with a company called Follow.it, trying to move the email subscription service from Feedburner to them. That’s because as of July 1st Google was putting Feedburner in maintenance mode, which meant that anyone who tried subscribing after that date would never receive anything. It also probably meant that at some point later in the year Google would shut it down permanently; they have a pattern.
I knew about the Feedburner issue a long time ago. It wasn’t until reading Holly’s post about Follow.it that I thought it might show good judgment if I went ahead and moved current email addresses subscribed to this blog to a service that would allow them to keep receiving notices. That, oddly enough, I hadn’t remembered in months that I might have anyone still subscribing to this blog because of getting fewer comments, astounds me, though I’ve had a lot of things going on lately. In any case, check out Holly’s article on what Follow.it can do for you; this will probably be the only time I write about them.
Seems the moves I was trying to do came with some complications; of course it did! lol In the midst of trying to get things set up properly, I lost access to my Atom feed, which I didn’t expect. I’ve also tried setting up a couple of other things related to Follow.it, but they weren’t going smoothly.
Eventually, I got a feed through Follow.it on Thursday… the same day I decided I was going to be taking a content creation break for a few weeks… actually, more like 4 or 5 weeks. I have some things to do professionally and personally that I felt deserved some time for myself, especially since Mom’s not home yet but hopefully will be within a few weeks. Thus, I did a very short video saying I wasn’t creating any new content after it, put it out Thursday morning… and felt all was fine.
Except I learned that Follow.it doesn’t go backwards. I thought the RSS feed would still show my previous content, including last Monday’s article… but it doesn’t work that way. Thus, my trying to subscribe to the feed in places like Flipboard or even my feed reader Brief, wasn’t happening. Seems the only way I can test both the email subscribers and the RSS feed was to write an article… which is this one.
Initially I was only going to write a couple of lines, publish it as a test, then move on to my relaxation. That felt disingenuous to those few people who are still subscribed to both the RSS feed and the email subscription feed, who might still care and wonder where I was. So, the article’s longer than I thought it would be, but it’s still a good test and informational article… right?
In any case, now you know what’s going on. If anyone who reads this is a new visitor and wants to subscribe to the email feed, just click on that green arrow over there on the right (not the one in this article) and subscribe; there’s lots of stuff there for you if you’re interested.
If you want to watch something talking about what I’m hoping to do, that’ll probably take you less time to watch than reading this, here you go; y’all have a great rest of the summer!
https://youtu.be/EuE1soc4cxw
Hi Mitch, I was wondering how this would all pan out with feeds. I still have my FeedBurner and WordPress one and they seem to be working for most things. For example, Triberr still works.
How was the process for transferring your feed?
I hope your mom is going better 🙂
Thanks for sharing about it Mitch!
Hi Lisa,
First, let me ask if you received this via email or RSS? If it was email, did you get it via Feedburner or Follow.it? You should have received it via Follow.it since they supposedly took over the email subscriptions on Friday, and I deleted my Feedburner food on the same day, so I’m curious. I subscribed to Follow.it as well, but haven’t received anything yet.
Second, I truthfully think I may have messed something up. One of the problems with sometimes switching to something new is that the instructions aren’t laid out properly or thoroughly. In this case I think I misunderstood something early on, then kept trying to fix it but without any instructions. Sometimes we’re too smart and stubborn for our own good. lol In any case, I think Follow.it is only for email subscriptions, so I’m going to change the wording over the arrow on the left, then go back and add the actual RSS feed like I had it on my previous theme, and that should take care of that problem. We shall see.
Thanks for the words about Mom; I get to see her Tuesday and I’m hoping for the best.
Hi Mitch, email via Follow.it
I haven’t done mine yet and it is still working with Triberr and a few other automation set up. But I understand WordPress has its own too. Time will tell. Thanks for the follow-up and I hope your mom is doing better!
Thanks for telling me Lisa. I subscribed so I could see what was coming & I also got an email. What’s odd is my email only had this article on it, whereas someone else I know got the last 5 posts, which included this one. That’s okay; I’m good with it, and I also set up the RSS feed so others can subscribe that way if they wish.
PS, I see the FeedBurner feed is not working with the CommentLuv – interesting!
Breaks are good. Stay healthy and happy!
Cheers,
Mitch
Thanks Mitchell; now if I can get at least one good night of sleep… zzzzz
Enjoy your break! Hope to see you writing again soon.
Ryan
I’m hoping the same. 🙂
I did not know that about feedburner. A bit of a gamechanger. All the best for the future
Thanks. It’s been coming for a while. It’s something more people are going to need to think about.
Yup, feedburner is causing everyone’s problems with their problems, I hope you come through this tough moment, well deserved break
Thanks John. At least we knew about Feedburner ahead of time. This week I got an email from Google recommending I move my list of email subscribers to another site. Since I finally got this one working I may have to do that for my other blogs.
Hello Mitch,
I’m very new to you 🙂 through VCB. Loved reading 100 things about you and got a few smiles and chuckles. I’m a kid at heart too. Yes, breaks are needed every now and then. I hope your mom is okay and your shoulder heals well. It’s bee a please to meet you!
Hi Lesly; welcome to the blog. Glad you enjoyed the 100 things; not many people are willing to share information like that about themselves. I’m also hoping my shoulder heals well, and fast. It’s about to be tested, as my mother’s coming home from rehab on Tuesday.
I have meant to comment here for weeks and haven’t done it. Got no good reason for it, but it ties into making changes on the blog.
I have been meaning to make a few updates on mine and just haven’t had the energy to wrestle with the tech. I know enough to be relatively adept at it, but it is those little things that make me crazy.
You know the little details that don’t work as they should and make you crazy trying to figure out if there is a conflict between plugin/theme or something else.
Man, do I! I changed my theme because things seemed like they broke, and I’ve gotten used to it.Then a friend of mine gave me an easy fix for my issue, which I applied to my other blogs since they used the same theme. But I’ve stuck with this one because it’s different, but I have to be careful because if I forget something I’ll mess up my analytics. Technology is a tough baby! lol