It was the best of feeds; it was the worst of feeds … At times they worked; at times they didn’t work.
But at least they were together, two feeds on a blog, until I discovered I could kill one off. It would be painless. Just a quick click and then delete. There would be no remains to dispose of, no DNA to tie me to the crime scene.
But murdering a feed should not to be taken lightly. It requires some thought. There’s family to consider, readers who may drift away after I pull the plug, mourn its loss by hugging their own feeds.
Please always remember it even though it was meant to be temporary – just a Feedburner fling. We only spent two years together on WordPress. I will think of it every time I visit the dashboard, but I won’t dwell on the loss.
I have another feed who has been my companion for many years … since we first met on Blogger – our impetuous younger days when I rarely had tech problems.
Big blogs cause big blog problems.
Life is more difficult because of it, and because of it, a difficult decision must be made.
Do I really want to kill the feed? The two feeds and I have been family, for a while anyway.
Do I really want to unplug one of the lifelines to my blog?
Dunno, dunno, dunno, dunno!
It’s hard to cut your losses, but sometimes it’s the only way to move on. *sigh* R.I.P. Feed 2. Please light a candle in its memory every time you turn your computer on.
If you subscribed to Think Spin on WordPress, please subscribe again. I’d hate to lose you. You are the engine that drives this blog.
Thank you for sticking by me all these years. I hope Charles Dickens’ ghost doesn’t haunt me. He was a scary looking dude.
P.S. – I’ll keep the feed on life support for a while longer to give you a cushion of time to change it. Thanks again!!!!
A tough move, but having borne witness to your tortured years of tech issues, I understand. May you be blessed with a future free of such waking nightmares. RIP feed two, and welcome back, feed one.
Love this post, Lauren.
Thanks June! I’m sick of having two blog feeds. I only needed one all along anyway.
June O’Hara…there you are!! I have missed you? I was having trouble with your feed for awhile and thought maybe I wasn’t getting your blog.
If you kill Blogger, will you stop showing up in my list of blogs I follow? I don’t have a reader for feeds so I’m hoping doing nothing is the right thing not to do.
I’m not killing the Blogger feed. I’m killing the one that was created when I upgraded to WordPress. I’ve kept the Blogger feed all this time.
Hey Lauren!! Ok, so am I in the right place? Is this the one still alive? Forgive me, I’m a little rusty haha! But I don’t want to lose you (-:
Hope all is well my friend! xoxoox! Melyssa
Hi! How are you? Yes, if you subscribed when I was still on Blogger, you’re fine. Are you going start posting again? I hope you do.
I wish I could understand the tech issues you are referring to.
Don’t think of it as killing a blog. It’s just that the blog is moving on to another dimension called “Archive”.
Remember, my NSA will always have it stored somewhere.
I wish I could understand the tech issues you are referring to.
Don’t think of it as killing a blog. It’s just that the blog is moving on to another dimension called “Archive”.
Remember, my NSA will always have it stored somewhere.
I’m not killing the blog. I’m just killing one of the feeds. I have two feeds.
Now, I’ve totally confused everybody. That’s what I do best.
I killed one of my feeds a couple of years ago but actually, it was my first Blogger blog that morphed into a second Blogger Blog. I am curious though…you are keeping your blog on WordPress right?? I have heard a number of people say WordPress is their choice over Blogger. I have only used Blogger and am curious about your preference.
Cheryl,
First of all, I am keeping my blog on WordPress. I’m just killing one of my feeds. When my blog was transferred from Blogger to WordPress, the BlueHost techies instructed Jen to create a new feed, which I’ve since found out wasn’t necessary. I didn’t kill the Blogger feed because I had 200 followers at one time. I figured out how to point the Blogger feed to WordPress. But the WordPress feed was what people clicked on when they wanted to receive updates from my blog. I wasn’t sure what to do with the Blogger feed until recently. I hired a tech guy, Mayura, who is amazing. I added his badge to my blog.
As far as choosing WordPress or Blogger, I’ve been plagued by tech problems on WordPress because I’m impulsive and do shit I shouldn’t do. I love my new look here. But honestly, I miss the simplicity of Blogger. I posted more when my blog was on Blogger. Then again, I’ve had a blog since 2009. So, you run out of things to say. I’ve also been concentrating on my writing.
It depends upon what your goals are. Do you want a writing platform if you’ve considered publishing a book or do you just want a vehicle for spewing shit?
Hope that helps!
The main reason I moved over to WordPress was because I found that Blogger doesn’t store blog files and photos. I only found this out by chance, when I had a disk failure and lost a lot of photos. I tried to download the photos from the blog and couldn’t, because Blogger doesn’t store them. With my own domain I can store whatever I want on my server space and my photos and anything else I upload to my blog, remain my property and are accessible at any time. I like to be in control of my blog.
I didn’t know that about Blogger. That’s a great point. Folks using Blogger should also export/save their blog now and then. Exporting means downloading a copy of the blog. It won’t delete the blog when you export it.
Lauren, I LOVE the way you wrote this post! What a clever, clever writer you are!
Okay so let me see if I have this correct, because I’m a bit confused.
Are you just not using your Feedburner feed anymore and just using the feed you have with this blog at WordPress? And if that’s the case, if I simply used your blog URL on my feed reader, will THAT be the correct feed?
Even though I’m on blogger, I use Feedburner as well, and it’s been giving me some major problems over the past three months (not updating). I’m seriously considering getting rid of my Feedburner feed as well, and just using my atom feed because so many of my readers are telling me that they are not getting updates. Or when they do get an update, it’s DAYS later.
Thank you, Ron, for saying that. : )
I use Feedburner, too. And apparently, I’m confusing people.
I use the Feedburner code in the “subscribe to this blog” button above. I just changed part of the code to include my old Think Spin feed address from Blogger. The new one was Think Spin SAHW. I’m getting rid of SAHW, which I’ve been using since I moved to WordPress.
If you subscribed to my blog a week ago or earlier, using the above “subscribe to” button here on WordPress, then you’ll need to subscribe again using the new code, added last week.
Going forward, I’m not sure what to do about Feedburner either. It’s been giving me problems, too, erratic subscriber numbers. If I should use a different feed service, the feed won’t change. Just the messenger will, along with a snippet of code.
Did I clear things up or confuse you further?
Most feed problems I have encountered, are not actually with feedburner, but with the readers people use. I tested it out on a few occasions and although a post wasn’t showing up on people’s readers, it was actually updated fine on my actual feed and the Firefox feed extension I use.
I’m sending flowers. It’s hard to say goodbye to any type of fooding. 😉
Sigh.
Thank you. You are so thoughtful. : ) You’re a tech person. Am I explaining this correctly? I know you’ve been using both my feeds on your blog. That will change eventually. I’m keeping both of them for a while, giving people time to make the change. Then, there will be one.
Yet another reason I’ve stayed put on Blogger. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it sounds way beyond my grade level. Don’t worry about losing me. I will hunt you down and find you wherever you escape to. 🙂
Thank you, Jayne.
Now I’m not receiving notifications of comments. Another thing to hurt my brain.
This brings to mind the old soap…..”Confused? You will be”
I will subscribe again, just to be safe.
Thank you. I hate it when I don’t make sense. I guess that’s why I don’t write instructions for products.
Now I’m lost with this one. Who’s killing who? What happens when the life support is switched off? What do I need to do? I get your feeds via my Feedly reader so I’m not sure if this will affect me getting your posts. HELP, HELP HELP…
Now, talk to me as if I’m a small baby ie: layman terms for a toddler
Crap! I’m sorry I confused things. Now the shit’s going to really hit the fan.
If you stop receiving post updates from my blog in your Feedly feed, stop by and subscribe again. I usually post once a week.
I visit anyway – feed or no feed. As a woman who spends her day in the tech space I am horrible when it comes to my own blog and all the nuances. I just don’t want to dive in deep.
I’m glad you’re not a slave to your feed.: )
I’m not touching any more tech stuff. I’ve sworn off it.
Lately, I’m finding it more difficult to balance blogging and writing.They are two different mindsets.
I’m all confused but think I’m ok here as I follow on wordpress. I blog on wordpress and really like all of its functions.
I’m good at confusing people. That’s a great idea about keeping up with blogs on wordpress.
I feel so fucking old and out of it after reading this post and these comments! I go on the internet, I type stuff, and nobody reads it. That’s all I know.
I’m not getting CommentLuv notifications. I’m sorry for responding so late to this.
Hang in there, Perry. Every blogger reaches a point in their blogging career in which you wonder why you started blogging at all. I’m at that point myself. We’ve got to muddle through it.
Hi Lauren,
I find it is a wise decision to make ’cause if you take no action and both feeds get huge number of following someday, killing one would be a no choice after all. Isn’t it? 🙂
As it all happening suddenly, letting ’em know about changes is the right thing to do. You did it here 🙂 Unlike email subscribers, feed readers is quite harder to tackle. I guess, may be even you can display a banner or notification bar on top for a while, so they won’t go unnoticed about the change. No?
In first few months of blogging, I recall losing over 200 of my blog followers on Blogger blog (Yeah, current one) due to a tech issue. Nothing I could do, and couldn’t recover. But, surprisingly, doubled the following within next months even I had to start from scratch. I feel, it’s not the obsession of numbers that matters but the value we offer 🙂
You have a lovely weekend Lauren 🙂
Cheers…
Thanks Mayura. You have been a rock throughout this ordeal. YOu have a lovely weekend, too, even though you were referring to last weekend. I’m not receiving CommentLuv notifications. Gotta send a note to Andy.
I’m holding onto the feed for a week to give my readers a chance to resubscribe to the original feed. I’ll eventually let it go. I guess I’m having a hard time killing it. : )
Thanks Lauren 🙂 I’m glad you are delighted to be back on blogging.
Hope we can figure out the comment notifications issue. Andy might have some tips on that too 🙂
Have a fabulous weekend!
Cheers…
You, too, Mayura. Have a fabulous weekend. Hope we can figure this thing out.
Hello Loren,
Well, People is adopting the feed one technique these days. I saw in many pages and blogs that the people gave first priority to the feed one. Nice decision you have made. 🙂
Thanks David! I still haven’t pulled the plug on the feed yet. It’s hard letting go. But I’ll do it soon. I have difficulty with change.