I've just spent about 45 minutes reading through all the blogs I generally follow, and have decided to ask a few questions to the great world-wide web. I'm just needing a bit of enlightenment, I guess.
1. Why can I post comments on some blogs, and not others? I know Blogspot had issues about a week ago, but I thought everything was fixed. One blogger in particular (Hi, QuiltSue!) I cannot get a comment to post for any amount of effort. This is not a really big deal, but I do like to leave an occasional comment.
2. What does having "followers" do for a blogger, besides letting us know that we have readers? How do some people have hundreds of followers? I have become a "follower" on many of the blogs I read, but I can see no benefit either way - being followed, or being a follower.
3. I learned awhile back that if you click on "reader" while in gmail (that's where my email account is), one can also find followers there, who are different from the followers on the actual blog. This totally confuses me.
I think that's the extent of my curiosities. Maybe those of you who are less technically challenged than I can try to teach this old dog a few new tricks. (I am a willing learner!)
I surely am technically challenged but have an answer for two of your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI'm having the same problem with blogger! It cycles me back and forth from logging in to the comment section. When I find one of those blogs(yours is one!) I uncheck the box at login that says keep me logged in...then I can leave a comment. I think it has to do with if they are using a new template or old template.
There is no benefit to the blogger to have followers. (Other then the fun of reading comments that have been left) I did not have the following widget for a long time but when people were asking to follow and wondering where the widget was i decided to put it on to make it easier for them.
That's what I know...which isn't much!@ LOL
I can answer your third question. Reader is a way to subscribe to blogs (to be technical, it's a way to subscribe to their RSS feeds.) That's how I read your blog and many, many others. I just have to go to Reader and I can instantly see which blogs have posted new entries and read them. I only see new, unread entries to the blogs I have subscribed to. I don't have to go to the site directly and never have to visit a blog to find out if anything new has been posted. I do have to visit to comment, though.
ReplyDeleteThe "follower" count is the number of people who subscribe to your blog using Reader. The twist is that there are many different websites that let you subscribe to blogs and each of those will have their own follower count. Google Reader is probably the most popular, though.
I don't understand the point of the Google Follow thing. I "follow" blogs through Reader so I don't see any reason why I would ever click on the Follow widget to follow a blog.
I know that one solution is the one given to you by Lori. I have also read that the problem is when a blog has comments embedded, ie they come up after the blog post, rather than a pop-up page. But then, yours is embedded and I'm OK leaving a comment here, and on others so I don't think that's it.
ReplyDeleteAs for folowers, I just take it as a great compliment when someone thinks enough of my blog that they want to be seen as a follower. Likewise, I will be a follower when I really enjoy a blog, but I don't always remember to become one - hmm, must check if I'm one of yours as I visit every day and enjoy doing so. I haven't a clue about the google followers though, I have noticed the same thing, but don't have an answer. I've just wondered if you need to be a follower to get the blogs on an RSS feed-type reader? Dunno though, as I don't use one!
Pheww, sorry, I didn't mean to write such a long comment - good thing we're not limited on the number of words we can use!
Good questions! I'm glad to see this kind of discussion initiated.
ReplyDeleteI only "follow" when asked to. It doesn't do anything for me personally, though I've guessed that some people use "follow" in their blogger dashboards to see what's new in the blogs they follow.
I use Google Reader and subscribe to them that way and "follow" has nothing to do with that.
I have a blogger blog ... mostly followed by family and friends (not a quilting blog) and frequently someone will email me and tell me they were unable to post a comment while other people don't have a problem at all. I've never been able to figure it out. I tried disabling captcha to see if that would help but I don't think it made any difference. Mostly people email me instead of commenting. *shrug* Since it's not so many people, I don't mind. If I received lots of comments, that would drive me crazy. I'd be switching to WordPress.
I know I didn't help at all, but I enjoy being part of this discussion nonetheless, even if all I did was echo your own confusion.
By the way, I should say that I've never ... not once ... been unable to comment on someone's blog so I'm especially confused about why people have trouble commenting on mine sometimes.
ReplyDeleteLike Heather, I've not had any problem leaving comments, as far as I remember, but a couple mentioned to me that they couldn't leave comments on mine. One sent me instructions and I got into the innards of Blogger and did something with an embedded option. I hate it when tech stuff doesn't work with a click of the mouse and a click on a box.
ReplyDeleteI've clicked on some blogs to be a follower when I like the blog & there aren't a lot who follow -- just to bolster the numbers. It's kind of an ego thing, don't you think? It's nice to have followers, but I'm not out to get more. That almost guarantees more comments, and it's so easy to lose hours on blogs as it is.
1. I am not sure why you can't comment on things, I have never had that problem. Of course I also don't comment as much as I should either.
ReplyDelete2. When someone follows a blog, it means they are adding the blog to their feed reader. The feed reader basically conglomerates all the blogs in one place so all the posts can be read easily in one place. It just makes reading blogs so much easier than adding a blog to your favorites and clicking on each site to check if there are new posts. This is the benefit for the reader to become a follower, makes life easier to read the blog.
The benefit for you to have followers is because if someone is using a feed reader to follow your blog, it is more likely that they are actually reading your blog. If someone stumbles across your blog once and doesn't follow it, they will probably forget about it later. If they add you to their favorites list, they may find that viewing blogs this way is cumbersome and don't visit very often. By having a follower you know that you have someone that is automatically alerted when you have a new post and is quickly and easily able to read your blog. Now granted some people that follow don't check their reader very often, but for those that do you have a much better chance of having them actually read your blog.
3. There are all sorts of blog readers out there. Blogger has their own, Google has one, there is one called blog lines, and many others. I use reader.google.com and I love it. I have over 150 blog in there and I have them sorted into categories, so if I am interested in looking at photography blogs today, I can look at just those. Google will tell me when a blog has a new post, so I don't have to even look at the blogs that don't have new posts that day. I love it! If I didn't use it, I would never be able to keep up with my favorite blogs.
Cheers!
Rachel