Saturday, January 16, 2021

Problems with the New Facebook and Blogger Interfaces

I open this post with a Judy Bolton image, used solely to prevent a completely obnoxious image from showing on my Facebook page.


I mentioned awhile back my intense dislike for the new Facebook and Blogger interfaces.  Forcing change on users during a major pandemic is disrespectful and dismissive.    

Regarding Blogger, I find it very difficult to build a post which has multiple photos.  I select the photos from my computer, then they land in the post in reverse order.  The photos are named in the order I want them and are selected in the order I want them.  Why reverse the order?  How does that make any sense?  

I experimented just to see if I could get Blogger to place the photos in order by changing the names or changing the order in which I selected them.  Blogger still placed the photos in reverse order.

The only way to get the photos in order is to select each photo individually and upload it before going to the next photo.  This is a huge waste of time.

I could also try creating the photographs in reverse order, then the images might land in the blog in order.  I don't care to play such an elaborate game.

How about fixing the issue, Blogger?

There is still the problem of the draft posts not having the correct dates.  The solution is just not to create any posts and not to publish anything.  Problem solved! 

Hey Google, is this your way of killing off Blogger?  If so, then you are doing great.  It's working!

Now Facebook...  Ugh.  I hate the new interface.  Actually, it is okay in that Facebook has finally quit hiding all of my friends' posts from me.  Okay, that's an improvement.  The problem is that I cannot stand how the new group content is handled.  There used to be numbers next to the group's names in the left sidebar that would let me know which groups had new activity.  Those numbers are gone.

I've been trying to figure out how to handle it.  I tried a few things, but I find that I'm not using any of those methods.  The result is I am no longer visiting most groups on Facebook.  

Another annoyance with the new Facebook is that it has a video section at the top.  That icon activates with a red notification for me once every few days.  I want to ignore it, but I don't like seeing it activated.  I have to click on it to dismiss it.  So what do I see?  Stuff like this.



Note:  These screen caps landed in this post at the very end, not where I wanted them.  They are supposed to land where my cursor is.  In the past, I could drag them to the proper position if they ended up in the wrong place.  I couldn't move them.  I had to delete all of the following text and then paste it at the end after the images in order to get them in the middle of the post.  Blogger, you suck.  

Anyway, these videos are of topics that do not remotely interest me.  The videos are from pages that I do not follow.  There were seven other videos, all from pages that I do not follow and of things that I do not want to see.  Facebook, you also suck.  

Since early December when I was forced into the new Facebook interface permanently, my usage of Facebook has decreased by at least 50%.  

There is also a concerning new development on Facebook which I don't care to discuss for several reasons.  We need a fail-safe, some place other than Facebook else to gather to discuss series books, just in case.

We need to use a site that actually has traffic.  Alexa has a list of the top internet sites by country.  Since more series book collectors are in the United States, I used the list for the United States.  Below, I have listed the top 15 sites plus the two other social media sites that showed in the top 50.  I am not able to see the rest of the list since I don't have an Alexa membership.  

 1.  Google.com
 2.  YouTube.com
 3.  Amazon.com
 4.  Yahoo.com 
 5.  Facebook.com
 6.  Zoom.us
 7.  Reddit.com
 8.  Wikipedia.com
 9.  Myshopify.com
10.  eBay.com
11.  Office.com
12.  Netflix.com
13.  Live.com
14.  Bing.com
15.  Walmart.com
21.  Instagram.com
37.  Twitter.com

Most of these sites are not social media sites, so they won't work.  There are several social media sites, but most of them are not conducive to the types of discussions that we would want to have.  However, there is one certain social media site that is rather high in the list of which I have been a heavy user for one year:  Reddit.com

Reddit is a throwback to the old internet.  It isn't pretty like Facebook and doesn't have the neat bells and whistles.  It does allow for discussions just like we used to have on Yahoo! Groups.  It does allow for photos in a post.  It does not allow for photos in comments, which is a drawback.  The people on Reddit don't seem to be as sensitive as the people on Facebook, which is a plus.  Of course some are, but in my experience, Reddit users have a tougher skin than the people on Facebook.  I like that.

I created a subreddit for series books, which I mentioned recently here in a post.  I am going to continue to work at it.  I hope that the series book collectors who are non-Facebook users will join.  I hope that at least some Facebook users will join as well.

Vintage Series Books on Reddit

I originally intended to do this around a year ago, but I decided that it wasn't necessary.  The new Facebook interface has me so annoyed that I was moved into action.

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