Follow my blog with Bloglovin

If you have been on the internet at all in the last week, you have probably seen the news that Google Reader will be as extinct as the T-Rex in July. I don't know if you were as heartbroken by this news as I was, I've used the service practically everyday for the last four yearS. Regardless, it sucks! But, when a door closes, somewhere opens a window and this means that until the time the reader is no more, we can explore newer and better? options. 

This week, I have been exploring two possible replacements for RSS feeds. Feedly and Bloglovin'. Both have pro's and con's, here are my opinions. 

Feedly.

Pro's

I really like the look of feedly and it's ability to connect your twitter feed so you can instantly follow sites tweeted by people you are following. I really like how easy it was to transport my feeds over from google reader. Plus if your google reader was a mess like mine, it is really easy to organize your feeds with Feedly, you just go to Organize and drag the blogs to the category you want them to be in. Feedly also makes it incredibly easy to share the post you are reading with your social networks. And finally perhaps the best feature, like google reader you can read the whole post in feedly. It is super customizable so you can choose which view you want.

Con's

You have to install a plugin. It is not really a big deal, unless you want to read blogs while on a school computer. But, if you are on the go you can always us the app. Also, when I have tried to add blogs directly in feedly, a few times it has not been able to find the site. For now, I can just add the site to reader because they link directly together, but since reader is disappearing... Also, and this is really, really, really minor, but the name of the blog the post comes from is written really tiny so a few time I have been unsure of who's blog I am reading the post from because you can so easily scroll past it. 

This is the main screen, from here you can decide what you want to read. 

Organizing is soo easy!

Each post has an option to share with Social Media. 

Blog Lovin'

Pro's

Blog Lovin' is great for discovering new blogs. Think of it kind of like a blog search engine. Plus you have the ability to follow a blogger. If you are in the mood to discover a new corner of the internet, I would totally head over to Blog Lovin'. They have a feature that email's you when new posts come up of the blogs you are following. If you are a got to have it the second it comes out type of reader, this feature might work best for you. 

Con's

As far as I can tell, you can not read the whole post in Blog Lovin' and it is not super social media friendly. Let me know if I am wrong about this and just can't see it. Plus it seems that their interface is what you have to use. For me personally with the 400+ blogs I subscribe to, having to go to each individual blog to see the whole post is not something I have time for. So, this is kind of a deal breaker for it being my main replacement. 

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

This is the homescreen. 

Not the whole post, but a snapshot.

So easy to discover new blogs! You can even search by terms.

My Advice.

With the impeding death to google reader, I am planning on using both Feedly and Blog Lovin'. Feedly will be my go to for actual reading of posts, I personally like it better for reading and Blog Lovin' will be my new place to discover all the blogs I love so much. It is actually not as complicated as it sounds.