and then she...switched to bloglovin

So I've been out of the blogging world for a few months. (AKA I've been a lazy lazy lazy blogger/blog reader). But it's come to my attention that Google Reader (the RSS reader that I use to keep track of all the blogs that I "follow") is shutting down this July. At first I panicked. What am I going to use instead?? Why would Google do this to ME?? There are quite a few other options but I was used to Google Reader and let's be honest, who likes change? (NOT ME!)

Anyway, I had a little time yesterday so I messed around (kinda like high school) with Bloglovin. Grace has been using it for a while (she's not afraid of change like I am, apparently), but I was hesitant because I thought it would be difficult. It was so the OPPOSITE of difficult.

Sign up with an email address (or Facebook). Under the settings icon you can create your profile name (Rachel), bloglovin username (http://bloglovin.com/andthenshesnapped), grab an avatar (from Facebook), and import the blogs you already follow from Google Reader. It was SUPER EASY and SUPER QUICK.

You can also "claim" your blog if you write one, so that it will show up under your profile. My blog was already on there (since it was already followed by people on Bloglovin), but it was on there twice (which annoyed me). And under my way old blogspot address rather than www.andthen-shesnapped.com (which also annoyed me). So, I emailed customer service and they combined the two and changed the blog address (and responded that they had down so within about thirty minutes!). THAT was AWESOME.

Now that I've got it I actually like it BETTER than Google Reader. It's way easier to MANAGE blogs that I follow. Google Reader had blogger blogs segregated from non-blogger blogs, which really makes no sense when I'm reading them. But in Bloglovin I just deleted the "blogger" group (which just deletes the group, NOT the blogs IN the group). It also makes it easier to un-follow blogs that I'm just not interested in anymore. Google Reader pretty much made that impossible for some reason. Anytime I'd try and unfollow a certain blog they'd be right back in my feed the next day!

The only con I've found so far is I don't love the Bloglovin app on my ipad mini. It's formatted for the phone so it doesn't look great on my ipad. Let me know if you've got a better alternative for reading blogs there. Or Bloglovin, if you're listening, can you make an app sized for the ipad? Pretty please?

So give it a try! If you like it please follow me there (you can click the picture of the bald lady below, or the "follow this blog on bloglovin" button over on the right). If you use something else, let me know in the comments!