I have a confession.
I don’t read very many blogs anymore. AND I FREAKING WRITE MY OWN BLOG THAT I WANT PEOPLE TO READ!!! What is wrong with this picture?
And I have another confession….
Most of the bloggers I spoke with about this, said they don’t read blogs either!!!
With Google reader gone, there has become a big void and disconnect in the blog reading world. A few have tried to fill that void, like BlogLovin and Feedly, but nothing has been able to do the job properly. So we as bloggers tried to push Social Media channels on our readers, in the hopes that our posts would show up in your Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram feed…but then each and every one of those channels added algorithms making it increasingly difficult for us to be found. The last and only way for loyal readers to read a blog post has become the newsletter – why? Because that is the only promotion channel that blog writers have direct control over.
BUT I MISS BLOG READING DANG IT!!!
As of lately, my blog reading consists of things I see on Pinterest and click over to see. Or whatever Facebook deems worthy to pop up in my feed, that I can pop over to read. I am leaving the choice of what I like / don’t like in the hands of my social media feeds and what they deem ‘popular content’. That is so not cool.
I used to find new blogs to read by trolling ‘Link Up Parties’. Do you remember those? I used to submit my projects religiously to the weekly link up parties, in the hopes of finding new readers. And likewise, would find new blogs to read by seeing what other people linked up! That was the good old fashioned way. Now I find myself trolling CraftGawker. (Which I love by the way, but the same people tend to link up projects there – so it is limited in finding new sewing people specifically).
So how to do we find new awesome blogs to read?
I seriously wanna know. And not have a giant social media channel filter their content for us. I want to see what they post, when they post it, every single day!!!! Is that so much to ask?!! Lol
I know Bloglovin and Feedly are an option, but I have never loved either of those sites for various reasons.
So in the meantime…I have created a Facebook group. It is open to any / all who want to join! A place where you can link up your daily blog post for all to find. As of now, I am the only member. HA! But hopefully that will change, and we can grow and find new blogs together. Because I miss my daily blog reading connection, and I miss seeing the awesome stuff you are creating. Not just the popular stuff Pinterest wants me to see…but what YOU are making TODAY! I want to see! I want to be inspired, and fawn over your creativity again. I want to see the incredible talent in this world, and cheer those on who are just learning. I want to get to know you, and the awesomeness that you are.
So if you are up for it, join the group. I’d love to have you, and see what you are making. I would love to read your blog!
Click HERE to join the Daily Sewing Blog Reading group.
Let’s start reading blogs again, together.
Thanks so much for stopping by, and until next time…
Happy sewing!
When Google Reader died, I got an app called NetNewsWire for my blog reading. It’s not perfect, but it works! And I get to see what you (and my other favorite sewing bloggers) are up to every day. I’ll check out your Facebook group, but honestly I don’t log in to FB more than once per week because I feel the negativity I encounter there EVERY time I log in puts a damper on my creativity. But I’d love it if you read my blog every so often!
The problem with Facebook, as I see it, is that my friends see my likes and responses, and not all my friends are sewers. Frequently on Bloglovin I click on something in the blog and nothing happens. I agree that for now newsletters are the way to go. I still read Blogs, my way of staying in touch, I like in small town.
I am still a big blog reader and use theoldreader.com. I even pay $2 / month to follow more than 100. Going to a reader is definitely the best way for me to stay up to date. My facebook feed and inbox are too cluttered to reliably follow things. But my well organized reader works well for me.
I use the Feedly app and I LOVE to read blogs! Not an Instagram lover- that’s a tease with not enough info…..
I now subscribe to Bloglovin’ but haven’t spent the time on blogs I used to. First off, I find some blogs get wordy. That is, the first couple paragraphs are about this, that & the other thing before getting into the project. When one is reading email, blogs, web sites, etc – well, we all know we could spend our entire day & more on the internet. So social media like Facebook sure helps to pare it down. I like the quick videos on projects I see on FB. Or I like the links, such as yours, as to whether I want to read further.
I still read blogs everyday, but I have gravitated towards nonsewing related blogs. I still follow some of my favorite sewing blogs but it seems that there are just so many to keep up with. I like bloglovin well enough, but it is pretty much ridiculous trying to keep up with the other social media channels, including my one Facebook page (Facebook is such a disappointment right now). Maybe blogs have just become exponentially bigger than what we have the capacity to read. But that really is a shame for the really good new ones out there 🙁
It’s really interesting reading the comments. Some really varied responses! I use Bloglovin’, but agree that it’s hard to find new good content and keep up with it. I usually try to take a few minutes with coffee and breakfast in the morning to skim through new posts. Thanks so much for putting this together – I’m excited to find some new things to read!
I stopped reading blogs for a while because I was overwhelmed with the daily DIYs and inspiration everywhere! I was busy consuming and not creating…
But I’ve been back on bloglovin lately! I really like it, and I love learning from the sewing community! I look forward to following the sewing blogs in the facebook group!
Oh geez, I just wrote a huge comment because you struck a nerve in talking about bloggers abandoning their blogs for other platforms. I copied/pasted my comment (actually more like a short story/novelette haha) into a Word doc to proofread it. Well, you can thank me now as I chose not to post it as it was VERY, VERY long.
I will just say that I really miss reading many blogs because they aren’t updated now because other ways of putting info out to the world like Instgram, Pinterest, Facebook etc, are being utilized instead. It seems that many now only post to their blog is to advertise a sale they’ve already put out on the other platforms. There just isn’t enough time in the day to follow each blogger I want to follow to do so on all the different platforms they are using now instead of their blog. I don’t know if many consider how many readers they may have lost because of not using their blog now. Not everyone wants to use all those other ways to follow someone.
I read blogs and subscribe with Bloglovin’ and also via email notification. Not all bloggers have the option to follow their blog with the email notification, although I don’t understand why as that is just one more way to keep their readers updated.
Anyway, I keep hoping some bloggers who stopped using their blogs to post elsewhere instead will miss it and start using them again. I know I am not the only one who doesn’t want to use all those other ways of social media. For me it’s about information overload and needing to do things other than trying to keep up with it all, so if I can only follow a few on their blog that’s how I’ll do it. Maybe it means I’ll get more done around my house and can actually start sewing more. LOL
I’m glad you miss your blog. I think you’ll find there are a lot who would miss you if you left completely. I know I am one of them and happy to read you do miss it.
OH great. So I removed the original comment I had written because it was so long and replaced it with another still quite long. At least this was shorter than the other, believe it or not. LOL
That facebook group is a great idea! Also are there really any great link parties anymore? Most have disappeared.. I was actually thinking about that yesterday and wondering if I can/should fill the void… Do you think people are still interested in linking up? I was thinking of a garment only linkup since that is what I personally would want to find and use…
I read a variety of blogs everyday. I use Feedly and quite like it probably because it’s what I started with and have carried on. I try not to subscribe to newsletters for two reasons. One, I rarely read them when they land in my inbox and two oddly it feels like more junk mail even though it’s the same blog I read at night on my iPad in bed whilst waiting for my nail polish to dry and my oil to soak in.
I also use theoldreader.com. It’s based on an older version of google’s reader. It took a little time to reacquaint myself with the format, but now I love it. I’ve stuck with the free version which limits me to 100 blogs, but I’ve found that’s plenty to follow on a regular basis.
I do subscribe to a few newsletters, but I find they are much easier to delete without even opening or reading. With all the email I deal with through work, I just don’t also want to read newsletters.
I have stayed faithful to blogs. I do use Instagram but have gravitated away from Pinterest and Facebook never took for me. As many, I was the google reader user and used the old reader for a while. Now I am using Feedly, not as perfect but over time have gotten used to it.
I find that I am opposite of Judi, I prefer wordy blogs to those where there are 20 photos and the text amounts to a short paragraph or two. I tend to skip over videos, I usually don’t have headphones handy. Longer texts are rather nice. I find that I go for Instagram for photos and blogs for stories. I just love words!
As for linky parties, I love the ones by frontierdreams and small things (gsheller.com), somewhat more knitting oriented but I find that these days many people post polycraftual 🙂
I think you’ve touched a nerve here. I’m joining the chorus of those who still read blogs. Shorter format social networks are just not the same as blogs, and Facebook is a little too social for me. I’ve been using a reader called Feedbin that I think works even better than Google Reader did. It also plays nicely with the Reeder app on iOS (so I don’t have to read in a browser on my phone). I find most of the new blogs I read via Instagram.
This is a great idea. For a while now, I’ve been forced to make a list of my favorite blogs on good ol’ paper so I can keep up with their posts. I spend a lot of time going through my list to check if any new post have been added. It’s taxing, but this is the only way I can ensure to keep abreast of the blogs I love.
I follow the blogs I want to read, including this sweet blog :). That way they end up in my feed. Followers of my own blog get to read it through their feeds by just clicking on “follow”.
I admit – I too was a non-reader for a long time, and it feels so wrong because , like you said, I want people to read MY blog. ? It just became too overwhelming to keep track of sooo many blogs, and then weed through all those posts for what I actually wanted to read. I’ve just found recently that by sorting those I follow into folders with Bloglovin’ I can get through everything a lot faster. If I only have time to visit my “friends” or “sewing” folder everyday that’s fine. I can go through “decor” or “lifestyle” on the weekends or whenever I have extra time. What’s really disappearing are the comments!?
I am a Feedly fan and use it to read the many blogs that I follow. It’s easy to organize into categories that work for me, and adding new blogs is a breeze. I like to read blogs on my schedule and in the order that I prefer, and FB tends to send things through that feed rather randomly so I’ll stick with Feedly.
I still read a LOT of blogs. I keep track of them through Inoreader – on my web browser or smartphone app. I like that I can group them by category so I can ready about one topic at a time. They have a nice “card” view to show the main picture or sometimes I switch to list view to scan which I want to read first.
Some blogs don’t offer an RSS feed which makes me sad. And some I get through email newsletters because they offer bonuses that way. It’s not my preferred way because my inbox is overloaded and I don’t have the nice sort features.
Great post! I have joined the Facebook group too. Feedly is my best bet, and it is nothing like Google reader…sigh….I find new blogs in part by watching blog hops – and then many of them do not have a way to easily follow them. Blog loviin’ seems to take forever to load, and I thik they are just showing me the posts THEY think I want to read….
I still read blogs. Too much probably!! I find new blogs by following blog hops. I either subscribe via email to daily posts, or I subscribe to newsletters. I also have a huge list that I follow using Chrome’s Slick RSS feed reader. I add blog addresses to it and whenever the blogs have a post, they are listed there for me to read whenever I want to. I like blogs because I don’t have nor do I want a facebook account and I do not have Instagram.
I’m in an odd situation. Years ago I was an active blogger and blog reader, but ended up falling out of it due to Life Stuff. I’m starting to get back into it, but the scene has changed from what existed 4-5 years ago. That being said, I just read blogs on my computer and will log into Blogger and catch up on my reading list a couple times a week. I’m also one of those folks who will end up reading through old blog posts from oldest to most recent.
I use Netvibes. I can put my blogs in different tabs but I have to make sure to update the links periodically and I can always add more. I miss good ole fashion google reader as well as the diary method of blogging.