Google Friends Connect ~ going, going, gone...

You many have heard lately that a few features are being phased out from the Google repertoire. Being that Blogger is owned by Google many of the blogs I follow have become increasingly concerned with the March 1st ending of a little add-on called "Google Friends Connect" and if you're like me you've been receiving a slew of email notices from worried bloggers, concerned they may soon be loosing 'you' from their blogging audience.

To delve a bit deeper, here is the exact wording for this change from the Official Google Blog and their November 22nd posting of last year...

Google Friend Connect—Friend Connect allows webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding a few snippets of code. We're retiring the service for all non-Blogger sites on March 1, 2012. We encourage affected sites to create a Google+ page and place a Google+ badge on their site so they can bring their community of followers to Google+ and use new features like Circles and Hangouts to keep in touch.

Now while this may sound like a catastrophe for all of us using the "Followers" feature on our blogs, the two are clearly not the same and I believe the key words here are "We're retiring the service for all non-Blogger sites..."

What this means to me is that if you're using the built-in "Followers" gadget that comes along with your Blogger blog then you're safe ~ no need to worry. The wording clearly states that this change only affects those who have this as an add-on for their non Blogger sites.

I hope this helps put some of the recent tension to ease and remember, if you want to follow along with what Google is up to these days you can always visit their own blog found here: Official Google Blog

Enjoy~

"Followers" ~ Where'd They Go?

I'm just popping in on this holiday weekend to give a little heads up on the "Followers" issue. Some (or all) of you may have noticed the lack of that Followers gadget on your sidebar. Seems Blogger is undergoing a little glitch in this area. I've checked into it and they are aware of the situation so hopefully it will be a fixed shortly.

I try to remember during times like these that Blogger does offer our blogs for free ~ it's a big help when things start glitching our here in blogland.

Can you imagine what life would be like without blogs and blogland? All those creative souls we've touched and friendships we've made would never have been. Not mention, I'd be out of a job, hah! So here's a big ThAnKs to Blogger for giving us a voice to touch the world, one creative soul at a time ~ now just fix our "Followers"... please. ;D

Enjoy~