Finally, A Decision - I’m Moving My Blogging To Google+

For more than a year now I’ve been struggling with what to do about my blog and the Blogger platform in general.  After 5 consecutive years of blogging each and every day I found myself hating the unavoidable curse of “repetition” haunting my every post. A new blog started last May, with additional topics, helped for a bit but in a lot of ways it still seemed to me to be “I got up at x, the weather was y, we did this and that, took some pics, went here and there, had dinner, watched TV, went to bed”.  Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.”

Also, I had come to dislike the entire Blogger format. At first it was great as everyone was new to me and it seemed there were lots of differing opinions on things. I liked that as it was a chance to share thoughts and opinions with anyone who might be interested. But, again, the topics of RV’ing and daily activities became too stifling and repetitive.  But mostly, for the way I wanted to write and share my experiences, news and opinions, I found the Blogger platform was not as good as some newer, modern platforms like Twitter, Instagram and especially Google+.

I’ve been experimenting for about a month now using a private G+ Circle that is accessible and viewable only to me and I’ve found I like it a lot.  I can post or share articles on any subject I want to an audience of millions (just think of all the trouble I can get into compared to just a few thousand RV’ers!).  I can post all my photos in a much better format, link to my YouTube videos or other public clips of interest to me. And, yes, lots of ways to share photos of our “little man” Mason!  Best of all is that it’s immediate and I’m not tied to a daily posting schedule!  I hate schedules.

Some readers might reasonably ask “if you don’t like blogging as much as you say  then why don’t you just quit altogether?”   A perfectly good question but the simple answer is that I like to write, to share ideas and opinions, to get feedback good and bad on my opinions, to try to influence people, to listen to and learn from others and also to share my 50+ years of experience working with computer technology.  I like blogging or writing or whatever you want to call it, I’ve just come to prefer platforms like G+, Twitter and Instagram to Blogger. It’s time to change and move on.

Already, in just a month of experimentation, I’ve found that Blogging on Google+ has, in a way, set me free from the repetitive nature of blogs.  I can still write almost unlimited length posts (although I still try to keep them 750 words or less), share, re-share and link to anything.  I can limit and/or target my audience for any post by simply addressing it to specific circle (i.e. Rvers, Techies, Family or Personal Friends).  What do I lose with this?  My custom blog design, archives, sidebar widgets etc. but no real functionality that’s important to me.

I mentioned earlier that one of the Blogger activities I’ve most enjoyed is being able to share my computer technology experience with other Bloggers. So, I’m not going to completely delete my current blog Rick’s Bit’s ‘n Bytes… I’ll continue to use this platform to comment on new systems like Windows 10 etc. and to document how-to explanations about any particular technique or procedure. I’m always available to help and answer any techie question any of you may have.

In the past year, I’ve bounced around this topic of Blogger in my mind and in a few of my posts without ever coming to a final decision.  I believe today I have. I’ll be doing most of my future blogging on G+ with the occasional post here that I think will be mostly computer or tech related. With that said, I’m off to cut the grass but I won’t be writing about it tomorrow or posting photos on this blog!

And, one last thing. I’ve made a lot of friends on Blogger and still enjoy reading your posts on my blogger sidebar.  I’ll continue to do that and leave comments when I can because I find reading about your daily activities and experiences much more interesting than writing about my own.  It’s funny how that goes but I do enjoy all of your blogs and look forward to reading about what you’re all up to each day.  I’m off to a new adventure I’m looking forward to very much.

Thanks for visiting!