Skip to main content

Following Lets Strangers Become Friends, Through Public Blogs

Occasionally, we see signs of confusion shown by people trying to Follow their friends blogs.
I'm trying to Follow my friends blog, but I only see "You have followed this URL, but we couldn't find a feed for it."
or
My friends tell me that my feed isn't updating. I made it private last week.


Both of these statements come from people who aren't aware of the implications of the limitation that private blogs do not have newsfeeds.

A blog that requires an invitation, to be viewed, requires that people become acquainted before the blog can be viewed. If your blog is private, a prospective viewer has to email you and ask for permission, before he can view your blog. Somebody surfing the Following community of one of your designated readers, and happening upon your private blog, simply sees the well known advice
It doesn't look like you have permission to view this blog.


Following lets strangers become acquainted with each other, by surfing to blogs that are publicly visible. Someone happening upon your blog, and seeing
It doesn't look like you have permission to view this blog.
isn't going to stick around, and try to figure out how to contact you. You're not going to get any casual readers, if your blog is private. Of course, you don't really want casual readers, which is what your prospective reader will find out.

And if your friends (folks who you have designated as readers) are looking to Follow your blog from their Reading Lists, have them rethink that idea. Without a newsfeed, they won't be seeing anything in their Reading Lists.

So, if you find it necessary to make your blog private, you should forget about using blog feeds and Following.

>> Top

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Embedded Comments And Main Page View

The option to display comments, embedded below the post, was made a blog option relatively recently. This was a long requested feature - and many bloggers added it to their blogs, as soon as the option was presented to us. Some blog owners like this feature so much, that they request it to be visible when the blog is opened, in main page view. I would like all comments, and the comment form, to be shown underneath the relevant post, automatically, for everyone to read without clicking on the number of comments link. And this is not how embedded comments work.

What's The URL Of My Blog?

We see the plea for help, periodically I need the URL of my blog, so I can give it to my friends. Help! Who's buried in Grant's Tomb, after all? No Chuck, be polite. OK, OK. The title of this blog is "The Real Blogger Status", and the title of this post is "What's The URL Of My Blog?".

With Following, Anonymous Followers Can't Be Blocked

As people become used to Blogger Following as just another tool to connect people, they start to think about the implications . And we see questions like How do I block someone who's been following my blog secretly? I couldn't see her in my Followers list (hence I couldn't use the "Block this user" link), but I have looked at her profile and could see that she's Following my blog. Following, when you look at the bottom line, is no more than a feed subscription and an icon (possibly) displayed on your blog, and linking back to the profile of the Follower in question. If someone Follows your blog anonymously, all that they get is a subscription to the blog feed. If you publish a feed from your blog, and if the feed is open to anybody (which, right now, is the case ), then it's open to everybody. If someone wants to use Following to subscribe to the feed, you can't stop this. You can't block it before, or after, the fact. You can't Block w