Sunday, June 30, 2013

Last Train Out of Here


With “Last Train to Clarksville” continuously looping as ear candy in the back of my mind while I write this, I’ve been struggling with the set-up for a world without Google Reader.

I know: get over it. That’s what everyone is saying.

The deaf have an idiom which, roughly translated, is their way of saying, “You missed it.” The hand motions equate a train, pulling out of the station and down the tracks, vanishing in the distance.

At least, that’s what the visual would look like, if performed in slow motion.

In real life, the action is as quick as the point of the saying: train’s left the station. It’s gone. You missed it.

That’s pretty much what’s happened to Google Reader. If you haven’t taken care of getting your ticket to “ride” on another reading service by tonight, you may as well kiss goodbye your last chance to transfer all your subscriptions. As they used to say in Ameslan, you missed it.

Not to say that changing trains at that new station has made for an easy ride. At least, not for those of us bloggers trying to rescue all those last-minute folks headed straight for a blog-reader’s train wreck.

You may have noticed my recent foray into that foreign world of computer code. Yes, I braved new territory in attempting to follow Feedly’s directions. With great trepidation, I cut and pasted some code (over to the left) and conjured up that green subscription button.

Yes, I know it looks like I was actually successful. Don’t be fooled. Looks can be deceiving.

At least, that’s the conclusion I reached when my favorite guinea pig submitted to the experiment of signing up as a new subscriber to A Family Tapestry on Feedly. The button worked, alright—in getting him from my post to the Feedly site. But it apparently didn’t lead him specifically to where he could subscribe to A Family Tapestry. Instead, he then had to locate the blog via an index and add a few more clicks to subscribe.

I’m not sure that was the non-stop trip it was intended to be. If the “click” doesn’t produce the subscription in one step, why not just place the hyperlinked word “Feedly” in the sidebar and let subscribers fend for themselves? If a button says “Follow,” I want it to do the action it advertises and get me all the way to my destination.

I noticed Feedly seems to be pro-active in advising bloggers via Twitter, so maybe I’ll go that route after the weekend, and hopefully get better informed.

In the meantime, if you haven’t yet availed yourself of a ticket to make the Great Transfer and would be willing to serve as guinea pig in clicking the Big Green Button and letting Feedly be your conductor to a substitute Google Reader destination, I’d appreciate some help with this blogging baggage. Please send me your feedback and let me know how your journey fared.

Otherwise, we’ll be singing along with Google:
We'll have one more night together
'Til the morning brings my train.
And I must go, oh, no, no, no!
Oh, no, no, no!
And I don't know if I'm ever coming home.

12 comments:

  1. I thought yesterday your Follow button worked. Now I realize it took me to MY Feedly index. I assumed that since I already migrated my subscriptions to Feedly, that I didn't need to follow again.

    The instructions on how to create the Follow Feedly button make no sense to me. (1) Search for your URL on Feedly - where? There is only one search box and it searches itself. (2) Paste your URL after /feed. What text? And which "/feed"? They have it twice. Is that boldface part the model? Why is there no space between the regular text and the boldface text? What does that mean?

    And finally, why doesn't Feedly Support respond to my cries for HELP?

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    Replies
    1. OK, so I Googled and found a couple blogposts in which people showed how to figure one's "feed URL." It was much simpler than what I read on Feedly. When I inserted my feed URL into the "button factory," I actually got something that seems to work. At least there was no "Oops" message.

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    2. I agree, Wendy, the Feedly instructions could have been construed more than one way--big possibility for confusion. Like you, I had better success taking a look around at what others had done than just reading the instructions from Feedly's "factory," especially with the two "/feed" points in the URL to be used.

      Glad you got past the "Oops" point. Ah, those error messages we learn to hate...

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  2. Wendy, I'm with you. The Feedly instructions were useless. I played a bit and got it to work.

    I unfollowed then followed both Wendy and Jacqui via their buttons and it worked for me. Crossed fingers!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the input, Sally. Good to know that. And glad it worked. I just hate the thought of sitting pat and thinking everything is working, just because I followed someone's step-by-step, only to discover way later that it didn't really produce what I thought it would.

      Come to think of it, I've had that same squishy feeling about my "follow on Twitter" button...

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  3. First, I copy the main URL of the blog I'm reading (such as yours: afamilytapestry.blogspot.com). Then on the Feedly.com site, I just go to the top left and click "Add Content." A box opens up. then I past the main URL of the blog into the box. Then I click the little x at the right side of the box. Done!

    That's how I've added all the blogs that I read to Feedly. Hope this is helpful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for adding that hint on adding subscriptions to our Feedly, Mariann.

      I think we will all breathe easier when we get past this stage of uncertainty about the changes we're facing--testing out new providers for our blog reading and subscriptions. Sometimes, it seems the wider the array of choices, the greater the sense of uncertainty!

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  4. Normally, I enjoy train rides....

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    1. Ah...you and your train rides, Iggy! I can see why you wouldn't want a ticket to ride on this one...

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  5. Jacqi, I think your Feedly button works--it took me straight to a page where I could see the last few posts and add you to my list. Now I'm wondering if the one I set up works, though! I should probably ask for some volunteer testers, too--good idea.

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    Replies
    1. Shelley, yes--it is always nice to have those willing volunteers to help test things like that!

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