Google announced this week that it is no longer going to support Google Friend Connect (GFC). “To recap, we’re in the process of shutting a number of products which haven’t had the impact we’d hoped for…” I was puzzled by that statement since 90% of the blogs I visit have a GFC widget. Ninety percent is not enough for Google, guys. They want WORLD DOMINATION. I’m not hating on Google. I seriously fail to see how GFC is a failure to them when so many bloggers use it.
So to recap my feelings, I am mad. Actually, I’m mostly sad like I’ve been dumped by a boyfriend that I relied on for so long. But, since I don’t like being sad, I’ve decided to be mad. When I sat back to examine why I was mad and what exactly I was losing, I came to realize something. I’m not losing hardly anything. People can still read my blog through my RSS feed, twitter, facebook and email. What did I value about GFC that I feel like I’m losing? ANSWER – THE NUMBER. You know what number I’m talking about.
Every blog I visit, I am always curious about what their follower number is. Without even thinking about it, I always judge the blog a little by their numbers. Not in a bad way. I would break down my judgements into these categories:
- 0-100 Followers: Aww, how cute. They just started blogging!
- 100-500 Followers: Newbie blogger, but look how hard they are working!
- 500-1000 Followers: Established blogger. I want that to be me someday.
- 1000+ Followers: JEALOUS. Maybe that will be me someday if I work hard enough.
I spent all day thinking about how I was going to replace GFC. The truth is, I don’t really need to replace it. I’ll let it sit there until Google pulls the plug. Since visitor stats are useful, maybe I’ll put a hit counter or a RSS reader count from feedburner on my sidebar – I can’t really decide.
How do you feel about Google discontinuing Google Friend Connect?
My name is Jessica. I love to read Young Adult and classic literature. I’ve been a book blogger for six years and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet. I’m a very curious reader. Writing about all the questions and thoughts I had while reading a book is the best hobby ever.
This is all true. Though through feedburner you can still have a counter that tells you how many RSS subscriptions you have :)
I just added a FeedBurner counter. It’s not quite as inflated and big as my GFC number, but I’m still proud of it :)
As a reader, I am really upset abut it because I do not know how it will affect me. I follow a lot of book bloggers and all through GFC which made it really easy for me to go to my dashboard and check all the updates everyday. I am not very savvy with technology so it took me awhile to figure it all out and get comfortable and now I feel like I have to start all over. :/
UGH! That sucks! I hope you figure out how to re-follow all of your blogs.
I have to agree with what you said. I panicked momentarily when I heard the news, but now I’ve realized it doesn’t matter as much as I thought it did. Hopefully, the people who like and read my blog will subscribe or keep updated another way :)
I love reading your blog and I actually follow you on twitter so you haven’t lost me as a follower :)
Hey, thanks for the post! I missed the announcement. Must figure out something else…
btw, yer number is 221 now, lol.
Thanks Deb! *Happy Dance for my 221 followers* LOL It will be interesting to see how other bloggers deal with no more GFC.
I never added GFC to my blog because I just didn’t see it as being useful to me, personally.
You’re right about people following through GFC and then not reading the blog. I did that often, follow a blog that I actually wanted to read through GFC but then never came back because I had forgotten about it. RSS feeds work better for me.
I had read another blogger post on this. But they seemed to say it only affected people who used WordPress. That GFC only worked for Blogger blogs but wouldn’t work for WordPress anymore. So when I read your post this nearly killed me! How are publishers supposed to know how many followers we have??? So annoying! Plus It was nice to see that little number steadily increasing. Guess I’ll have to figure out something else to do! *sighs*
It’s true that blogger blogs will get to keep their GFC widgets, but people predict that google will eventually stop supporting it for blogger, too. Besides, if all blogs can’t have it, what’s the point? Tell me what you use to replace GFC because I haven’t come up with anything yet!