A Bit of News for Those Following Blogs Using Google Friend Connect

I hate technical posts so apologize up front, but I'd hate to lose any of you as followers. I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but apparently if you read Blogger-based blogs using Google Friend Connect you'll no longer be able to do so after tomorrow unless you have a Google account. I've copied the information Blogger provided below in purple. 

(From Blogger:) In 2011, we announced the retirement of Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites. We made an exception for Blogger to give readers an easy way to follow blogs using a variety of accounts. Yet over time, we’ve seen that most people sign into Friend Connect with a Google Account. So, in an effort to streamline, in the next few weeks we’ll be making some changes that will eventually require readers to have a Google Account to sign into Friend Connect and follow blogs.

As part of this plan, starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other OpenId providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count.
We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a blog post), that if they use a non-Google Account to follow your blog, they need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow your blog. With a Google Account, they’ll get blogs added to their Reading List, making it easier for them to see the latest posts and activity of the blogs they follow.
We know how important followers are to all bloggers, but we believe this change will improve the experience for both you and your readers.

If you use Bloglovin or another reader program, you can search for my blog by title and follow it that way, or just click on the Bloglovin button at the upper right on my blog. I've been using Bloglovin for a while now and am pretty happy with it, but I know there are other sites out there that allow you to choose and follow the blogs you like to read.

On a related note, I noticed about a year or so ago that when I leave a comment on blogs linked to a gmail account, the blogger author no longer receives an email showing my comment. I do receive a long and technically detailed email telling me so. As I've yet to figure out how to get past this hurdle, many of you aren't being notified by email when I comment on your blogs. I don't have a gmail account, but do have a Google account and am still blocked. It's annoying and mystifying (in a bad way.) I've been resistant to adding a gmail account as I already have two Yahoo mail accounts, but may have to give in and see if that solves the comment problem.

Thanks in advance for sticking with me! I have a fun post coming up about a journal I made using a vintage photo album cover. Here's a sneak preview, just so you have a photo to see in this otherwise boring post!