Today the Blogger Buzz blog announced that Friend Connect has been integrated with the Followers feature, enabling readers to log in and become a follower of your blog using their preferred login details (rather than using only their Google account).
As explained in the introductory post:
[...] Your readers come from across the web, from Yahoo, AOL, WordPress, Typepad... not just Blogger. That's why we're excited to announce that we've integrated Blogger Following with Google Friend Connect.
Friend Connect encourages readers to use one account (whether it's a Google account, a Yahoo, AIM or OpenID account) to follow any site - a Blogger blog, a WordPress blog, or any other site that has incorporated Friend Connect.
This integration promises more exposure for our blogs as those from other social networks can follow our posts, be updated of new articles and share their followings with friends from other social sites.
Here is what the Blogger Buster followers widget looks like now:
I did need to alter some of the colors to ensure it matched the overall design of my blog, but otherwise this was integrated with my overall design. If you need to edit some of the font colors for your own Followers widget, simply click the edit icon or go to Layout>Page Elements in your Blogger dashboard and choose the "Edit" link. On the pop-up screen you will be able to change the colors for the different text sections of your widget.
Here also is a video which the Blogger team created to explain "How to follow" a blog:
As hinted in the introductory post for Friend Connect integration, we're likely to see even more new features based on Google's social integration features over the next few months!
Feel free to let us know what you think of Friend Connect and the updated Followers widget by leaving your comments below.
60 comments:
this sounds pretty cool but unfortunately, it didnt work out automatically on mine. i wonder if tweaking was an issue as i did some a few months back when following widget was first introduced.
do you think there is another way of fixing it without reinstalling the widget?
thanks!
woouw,, kerenzzz
I already had both the followers and friend connect widget.. Now following the replacement, I have two google friend connect widgets and both of them show different followers.. Is there a way to integrate both of them??
why my follower on Follower Widget was decreased from 136 into 86. I notice many of the bloggers have the same problem.
and after the integrated with GFC, the follower on Follower Widget still remain the same.
Any info about this?
Good news. Now we have more friends :). Thanks for give us this new.
Hi Amanda! Any ideas on how we can change the widget border color and font? Thank you :D
I HATE it! I mean, you can't remove the border? and now it's HUGE. And now, I can't remove it or move it from my top element to my side element and it's such a monster. I want to be able to show as many followers as I want to show. Ugh ...I hate it. Show us how to configure it to look better please!!! ..I'm working on it as well. ergggg.
It's a horsey piece of crap. C'mon Google, get your design s#@t together or let us do it for you.
I also want to change the border color? Any ideas?
I also noticed the rel=no-follow tag in there- How come?
What the heck? I don't like it at all! My other followers widget looked much cleaner. My main issue is that I can't figure out how to see profiles of who is following me. I like to visit my followers and comment on their content, but I can't figure out how to do that in this format? Perhaps I am dim, but can anyone help???
Mama Chicken- click on a pic and there will be info about that follower including a link to their blog, sites they've joined, and about me. Really cool actually, but I want to get rid of the ugly border and when I change my blog look come spring- they may be color conflicts with me- hope this helps.
I was surprised about this change the moment I view my blogs. IMO, its not that good since the follower icons are a bit BIG. Just IMO.hehe
It seems to me that if you want to totally customize the widget and you already had the followers on your blog, you would have to delete it and then reinstall it putting the code in your html. I'm going to test this, and hopefully I wont lose my followers. Amanda, any thoughts on this. I say this because right now trying to change the border color has been unsuccessful for me with messing with what is there in the widget- sure would like a way to do this without reinstalling it.
I've just noticed that it's possible to change the border color by editing the widget (the edit link when viewing in the Page Elements section, or the wrench if editing directly from your blog pages).
However, it is not possible to remove the border altogether :(
This new widget is generated as an iframe using JavaScript. This means that (so far) I've not been able to add any extra CSS statements to override the default styles of the widget.
I will keep trying though as it seems the main complaint so far is the design of the widgets.
So far we know how to change the border and font colors. I'm assuming the font size/font-family will change according to the styles applied where the widget is placed (eg: sidebar, footer, etc).
Which other ways would you guys prefer to alter the widget appearance? I'll work on this when I have time, but as this widget is created using JavaScript (to which I have no access) I might not be able to work out exactly how best to alter the format.
For those curious about statistics for followers dropping, I did see some issues mentioned in the Blogger Help groups and assume this issue is being worked on right now. Chances are this will be fixed after the weekend, but I'll be sure to let you know of any news I find in the meantime.
Amanda, it seems to me (and I really have no clue) that if you didn't already have the followers widget on your blog (which will change automatically to the new friends connect widget), that when you follow google's directions for placing it on your blog, i.e. adding the code for it in your html, that the ability to customize it is there- looking at that code anyway. Or rather, I went to this site http://xrl.in/1nmi and he or she has made it a little more simple (some say it's not working, and this was my experience as well), but my point is that it is CSS. Also, when I tried to download the files that need to be added so the widget will work- on my test blog that has never had the followers widget- there was nothing there for me to get- I was opening it in firefox instead of saving it to my computer, however, so I'm going to try that. I think in is CSS though. Maybe the solution is to delete the followers widget and use google's directions to add the code to your blog? I don't know if you'd lose your followers or not- that is the bad thing.
Thanks for working on this, by the way :)
I don't like it. It's too big and you are not able to show as many of your followers as before. The old one was more compact and cleaner looking.
Please consider going back to the old one.
I hate it. What was once straight-forward and attractive is now complicated and ugly. I don't like the large Follow button, the three different text instructions, or Google's logo in the bottom corner. I'll be deleting it today.
ah more people who hate this new widget.. and the white border sucks might just have to remove it all together :-(
It looks lousy. Please, google - restore the old, clean-looking version. this bites.
Thanks DirtDigger! I actually fumbled around until I figured it out. I still don't really care for the appearance, though. the old format was much cleaner looking.
Oh! That is what happened. I thought my blogger account suddenly went nuts. I love your blog. I always look forward to getting it in my email.
Debbie
Another awful looking Google redesign. Noticed the hideous new gadget on my new Blogger blog last night. I've already joined the pack at Blogger help forums in voicing my disapproval.
Amanda, you did a good job on explaining the benefits of this new "Friend Connect" thing that Google is so eager to promote. Still, I'd appreciate any tips on how to edit this unsightly thing back down to size or replace it with a better "follow" widget.
Thanks.
Removed it the moment I saw it.
My blog has four (4!) followers ;-) - and with the newly designed widget I got a huge empty box surrounded by a white border and two ugly buttons ... duh!
Amanda, if you could figure out a way to make it smaller, that would be the best fix. It is so big and ugly now, I hate it. I moved it much lower down on my blog.
I'll probably remove the widget from my blog. It's hideous.
This is the worst crap redesign EVER. WTF
Ha! First they create an ugly new favicon, then they do that... I can't complain about free stuff, but Google should get their money back from their designing team.
I had to remove this thing.
If you set the border the same colour as your background you won't be able to see it. I haven't seen a way to get rid of the football field of space I see under the avatars. Like many others I have only a few followers. I notice it doesn't look as bad on yours Amanda because you have so many followers.
I see you got rid of the Friends Connect Google Ad.
Cheers, webgurl
The setting in the widget for 'border' is the two lines above and below the follower's pics- not the border around the whole widget. Anyone know how to change the color of the whole box border?
Bah, this is annoying. I've finally started to get a few people following, and they change it, and my once relatively minimal design feels clunky now. I changed everything to white to try to restore how clean it was, and it seemed to work, and the whole border going around has dissapeared. Why or how I have no idea, but the change was not immediate.
I can only hope they go back to the old design, which was pretty good in my opinion. I only wish to keep the view all friends page gridded.
Yup, nice touch with friends!
I tried changing the border color which it says you can do. It changes at first then later changes back to original color. What gives?
This is the worst crap redesign ...
i follow u....
It's amazing that google created such crap. I agree the this new followers widget looks terrible and is an eyesore on my site. I hoep they go back to the other widget.
Thanks for posting. I think the Friend Connect that can be installed as a strip that runs across the top or bottom of your blog is quite discrete and will look good with most themes.
I too had some problems when I was automatically switched from Blogger Followers to Google Friend Connect. I lost about 10 people on my list.
I would like to see a way to customize the background color of the widget. Right now it's transparent, but I would like to make it white so it shows up on my blog better.
Why couldn't Blogger at least offer a couple of options before forcing this thing on everyone? They surely must know that many people have customized templates, and one size does NOT fit all - not to mention that the thing doesn't work. Not sure why they couldn't offer both options, old and new.
This app is almost cool, yeah! Almost. Why? You see, I have three (3) blogs and the app only worked on my two blogs don't know why it didn't work on my other blog.
Awful re-design.
Hello Bloggers,
I have recently visited a new blog community which has some certain basic features like any other blogs forum, but a great place to interact and share the topics and views.
Thanks and keep up blogging
Maxcy
http://www.bloggersforum.com
I has both the followers widget and the GFC widget with separate followers in each.. Now after the replacement, I have 2 GFC widgets with different set of followers.. I don't want to lose any of the followers.. Google should atleast come up with a solution to merge the followers..
I love this site.
That's a really nice fix.
Thank you so much for this. ^__^
It looks prettier if you have more followers so if anyone wants to make my blog look prettier... :)
Rebecca
My Writing Blog - http://frombrain2bookshelf.blogspot.com
This is a great post. Giving us an idea to get more friends on blogging. Thanks a lot
A very nice site.
Infomist Services
How do you think should we change follower so that it only shows the number of followers and then the follow button
Hi.One problem.I used to have a blog on a particualr gmail account.Then I shiften the blog to another gmail account and changed the settings etc in blogger with my new email.But,when I invite friends out of my followers widget,the messages replies keep getting sent to my previous email account??How doo I sort this pls.Thks in advance.
Hello Bloggers,
I have recently visited a new blog community which has some certain basic features like any other blogs forum, but a great place to interact and share the topics and views.
Thanks and keep up blogging
http://alturl.com/j8w2
http://smsmob.blogspot.com/
hate it. its also seems to have taken the place of "subscribe to feed/rss feed" on most blogger blogs as well.... and thats just arse.. i hate googlereader so i dont want to have to use it to follow blogs
I see my followers show up on my dashboard but they do not show up on my blog as they did before... How can I get them back on my blog?
HELP
Maggie
I like everything about it. But now my photo in followers shows up as a red place holder dot. It was working fine before.
Does anyone know how to fix this??
Thanks!
its miracle...
GFC is the best
nc article amanda..
th u
Wow ! this is a great addition to blogger blogs. it allows more people to interact withe blog.
Maggie R said...
I see my followers show up on my dashboard but they do not show up on my blog as they did before... How can I get them back on my blog?
HELP
Maggie
SAME AS PROBLEM ABOVE....Help Me
Nice widget, but I don´t like the design so I deleted it again!
By the way: Very nice blog!
Amanda,
I was looking at my html today and was reminded that the followers code has a no-follow tag in it- can I safely remove this as I have for the comments and trackbacks?
I have the followers box on my blog but none of my followers in it, is there a problem today with followers or is it bcos I added a new background.. I have checked out some other blogs and they have the same problem.
Post a Comment