Category Archives: google

Missing updates in Dashboard? – Its due to Google Friend Connect ! #RIP #GFC

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Bloggers see the effects of losing Google friend connect.

In November the Senior Vice President of Operations for Google Urs Holze announced Google were spring cleaning, part of this cleaning involved terminating Google Friend Connect for non-blogger sites, such as WordPress. This retirement went into effect on the 1st of March and bloggers that did nothing about it are now losing many page views or unique visits from people that were only viewing from Google friend connect.

Google tried to encourage people to transfer subscribers to Google+ and to create Google+ page but we heard that many didn’t want to have to create more work for themselves and some don’t even like Google+

However, it might be something to think about as the future is clear, with the G+ button having a big impact on SEO and it all being connected with Google profiles, pages and especially business pages, I don’t think its something you want to miss out on as a blogger.

What they didn’t suggest is Google Reader,  many use Google Reader to keep up to date with their favorite blogs or websites.

An easy way to get people to subscribe to your blog/website on their reader is to add a Google+ button to your website – or even better to add the AddToAny: Subscribe Button plug in and with one click you get added to a persons Google reader.

If you have been thinking that you haven’t received some updates in your Blogger or blog spot dashboard then you have probably lost some non-blogger blogs, if you have Google reader you should add them to it, as soon as you can, if you don’t use it, now might be the time.

What is Google Reader.

(Google reader is a Web-based aggregator that reads from Atom and RSS feeds)

Google reader allows you to subscribe to the feeds of all the blogs that you love to read, and updates everyday so that you have the latest blogs sent straight to your feed.

With Google reader you can

  • Sort your Blogs into groups for easy reading by using folders.
  • Read in two views, expanded and list – and if you want to go to the source of the story you click the headline.
  • Easily share with others.
  • Use Keyboard Shortcuts 

You can add people to your Google Reader a number of ways

  • Searching in Google reader
  • Entering the RSS or Atom Feed, which you have find click on the RSS logo on the website
  • Clicking the buttons on a website.
Have a look the buttons on the techieminx main page – I’ve added all three – right at the bottom on the right.
You can even add a plug in on WordPress that shows the latest blogs on your reader.

What is iGoogle

iGoogle is your personalised Google home page for adding your favorite blogs, news sites, weather sites, photos, usually by using iGoogle Gadgets, here you would put anything that is most important to you. You can even add your Google reader to iGoogle.  This is nice to play around with, this is just for you, no one else sees it.

So you would need to put all of you the blogs/websites that you need to keep up to date with on Google reader first.

I love Google but its really not fair that they have crushed people’s hard work by dumping Google friend connect.  I know about progress and that they gave warnings its still heartbreaking to read some of the stories out there in blogland.  Google haven’t actually confirmed if they are going to keep it forever on Blogger or blogspot by the way – so if I were you I would be prepared and get Google+ and Google reader and encourage others to do the same. Once set up, neither take any time at all, in fact they save time.

I’ve only brushed over the top of these options, if there is anything you want me to elaborate on please let me know.

Hope this helps.

 

Google updates privacy policies – worried much?

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Google announced a few days ago that they are updating their privacy policies.

They are now also sending out emails to everyone with a Google account, how much more upfront can they be and still people think they are hiding something.

The changes come into effect as from the 1st of March but already people are voicing their concerns on Facebook and Twitter.

One person said they will feel like they are being watched all the time, they said this publically on a twitter account with many followers :)

Google amalgamated all policies into just one privacy policy, to make it easier for everyone.

They say that they are creating one experience  – You log into Google Account and all of your accounts become one –  your Gmail – Search – You Tube and Calender.  In short, all of the information from these Google products will be shared with each other, to enable Google to understand us better and to help our searches be more accurate and target us with better ads.

I love Google – Google+, Youtube, Gmail, and everything that goes with it.

Its seems that some of us are worried that this just means that Google are keeping and storing more information about us, creating a big brother! This does not make sense to me, they already have all of this information anyway.

Google already knows all about you

You can still edit your own personal information to share whatever you wish on Google’s Dashboard - btw have you looked there recently?  You will see all of the information that Google already has about you.

If you are paranoid that Google are the bad guys, there are still ways that you can stop Google combining information from your Google account.  Such as you do not need to log in to you tube when watching videos – or you can use an incognito page when using chrome. You can even hide by deleting cookies and history.

Google say another reason for this update is because they want to make it easier to read and understand – Read Google’s terms of service and google’s privacy policy for yourself, I’m sure it will put your mind at rest.

No change could be for the worse! 

Google do stress that they do not sell our personal information or even share it without our permission, unless you are a criminal or such like.

They say that these changes will bring us better ads – which means more money for them in the long run – you can change or remove your ad preferences – and by deleting your cookies this also resets any information that they have regarding ads.

Will the information even be accurate?

I laughed actually when I went to look at the ads preferences –  they say that they infer our age and gender based on the websites that you’ve visited – mine say Age 18-24 Male – haha!  You can also remove or edit this information at any time, I’m leaving mine.

I don’t think that I have anything to hide (not much anyway) so I think it will be exciting to see if the changes have any effect on our searches.

However, if you are scared that Google is going to do nasty things with all of this information, you can hide it from them if you want, with these many settings or hide outs.

As we have to do with Facebook, adjust your settings accordingly.

Are you concerned, why?  Have I missed the point?  Let us know..

Hope this helps