Act Immediately, When Invited

Some moments come fleetingly, and never again.

One such moment may be, when you receive a blog membership invitation.

The purpose of this message is to inform you that xxxxxxx has invited you to join their private blog "xxxxx xxxxx". To accept this invitation, click on the button below.

or

The purpose of this message is to inform you that yyyyyyy has invited you to contribute to their blog "yyyyy yyyyy". To accept this invitation, click on the button below.

Unless you know the blog owner, this may be your one chance.

If you get an invitation to be a designated reader on a private blog - or an author on either a private or team blog - decide, and act as soon as possible.

Any invitation that you get will be temporary. Blog membership invitations expire, after a fixed amount of time.

Accept the invitation, to view and note the URL.

If the blog is private, and you accept the invitation as a reader, make a note of the URL too.

Long ago, you might get a "preview link" in the invitation - allowing you to view the blog, and bookmark / copy the URL for later. The "preview link" feature was abused by too many owners - and appears to be gone now.

No preview = no URL until after you accept the invitation.

Become an author, on a team blog!

Become a reader, on a private blog!



There's a limited amount of detail, in the invitation.

How useful is either invitation, if you don't accept, when viewed later? You can get the owner name (as provided by the owner), and the blog title - and that's it.

• Invitations contain only the author name, the blog title, and a membership token.
• A reader invitation, for a private blog, may not produce an entry in the dashboard "My blogs" list.
• Both author and reader invitations will expire.

Act promptly, for best result.

If you get an invitation, and you file it away so you can "think about it", don't think about it too long.

Once the token expires - and if you don't know the owner - you'll not be able to contact the owner. And until you accept the invitation - and actually view then bookmark the blog - you won't find out the URL.

Act quickly - or never.

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If you get an invitation to be an author on a private or team #Blogger blog, or a reader on a private blog, act promptly. Invitations expire too soon - they contain few details - and won't be very useful later.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/blogger/z-lKeqO-ssA

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Blogger Magic - Make A Private Or Team Blog

Some blog owners like to restrict access to their blog - and others want to have multiple people able to publish, or maybe to administer their blog.

A few even want multiple administrators, and restricted access. Both private and team blogs involve use of the Permissions wizard, and the membership invitation / acceptance process.

Making either a private or a team blog starts from the Permissions wizard. Just keep the multiple functions, and the different links, in mind.

The Permissions wizard, on the dashboard Settings - Basic page, is how we setup both private and team blogs.

You invite members - prospective authors and readers - using "Add authors" and "Add readers", respectively.

Start from the dashboard Settings - Basic page, in both cases.

Start from the Settings - Basic page.

Find the Permissions wizard.



The "Add authors" link is used for adding both administrators and authors.

Click on "Add authors", to add prospective administrators and authors.

Click on "Add authors", and add prospective blog authors.

Add a list of names / email addresses, comma separated.



Paste or type email addresses of prospective administrators and authors, into the "Add authors" window. Or use "Choose from Contacts".

To make an administrator, wait until the invited author has accepted membership. Then, change "Author" to "Admin", in "Blog Authors". Don't change an author to administrator, unless you understand the risks!

The "Add readers" link is used for adding readers.

Click on "Add readers", to add prospective readers.

Click on "Add readers", and add prospective blog readers.

Add a list of names / email addresses, comma separated.



Paste or type email addresses of prospective readers, into the "Add readers" window. Or use "Choose from Contacts".

Select either "Only blog authors" or "Only these readers", for private blogs.

You can make a blog private to Authors - or have both Authors and Readers. Select "Only blog authors" or "Only these readers", respectively.

Each prospective member must accept membership.

For an invited author or reader to become an active member, they must open the email and accept membership.

Prospective authors and readers are listed as "open invitations" - under either the "Blog Authors" or "Blog Readers" window - until they accept the membership invitation.



Accepting membership involves opening the emailed membership invitation, and clicking on the invitation link. The new member can use an existing Blogger account - or setup a new Blogger account, on the fly.

A GMail account is not required - just a Blogger / Google account - existing or new.

Remember membership limits.

Whether you are making a private or a team blog, remember that every blog is limited to an absolute total of 100 members.

• You.
• Any additional administrators.
• Authors.
• Designated Readers.

Designated readers (in a private blog) are part of the 100 member limit. Un designated readers (in a public blog) are not part of the limit. A public blog can have any number of readers.

Membership revocation may not be immediate.

You can revoke or update membership of an administrator, author, and / or reader - but membership changes don't always take effect, immediately.

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Making a #Blogger blog with administrators, authors, and / or readers starts with the Permissions wizard - and continues with each prospective member accepting membership, using email sent by the Permissions wizard.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/blogger/Vd_L5xAtKFY

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Google+ Circles Is Replacing Following / GFC

Those of you who have been Following this blog, in the past, may have recently noted a new gadget in the sidebar.

Just below the "Follow Me" gadget, you'll see "+Follow Me". The latter gadget looks similar to the former - but has some subtle differences. Some differences are visible, others not so visible. And some differences are not visible to the eye - but will still affect your access to this blog.

The Google+ Circles gadget, which on this blog is labeled "+Follow Me", appears similar to the Following / Google Friend Connect "Follow Me" gadget - but appearances can be very misleading.

The larger pictures are one obvious difference - but that's not the most significant difference. Some difference need to be discussed now, rather than later, for maximum benefit.

Blogger Followers lets your Followers Follow one specific blog.

Following / Google Friend Connect lets your acquaintances Follow a single blog. I have several blogs, and a different group of Followers for each blog. The Google+ Circles gadget shows everybody in all of your publicly visible circles, merged together. The merged concept may, or may not, be to your liking.

Google+ Collections now let you separate different content - so you can share one blog to one Collection, and specific people can Follow ("Circle") one Collection. I'm not convinced though that all of my Followers understand this distinction.

Blogger Followers let you use email and newsfeed subscriptions.

With Following / Google Friend Connect, your Followers can use email, or any number of newsfeed clients, to read the complete content of your blog - including each complete post, if you setup the blog feed that way. Google+ Circle members can read a snippet of any blog post intentionally Shared, in their stream - but will have to click on the link to the blog, in the snippet, to read the entire blog post. If you have read this far, that's what you have already done.

Following / Google Friend Connect works best for public blogs - and supports a reader audience of unlimited size. A Google+ Circle, likewise, supports a reader audience of unlimited size.

With a properly setup Google+ Circle, and a Blogger blog with a list of designated readers - and your readers properly accepting the emailed membership invitation, up to 99 of your designated readers can Follow your blog. As before, the limit for private blog distribution, as for any team blog, is still 99 members.

Anybody Following a blog, using the stream of any author of the blog, will see a snippet of each post Shared in their stream. To read the complete post, they will have to click on the link in the snippet. With a private blog, the reader will have to be a blog member, to read the complete post.

Many Blogger blogs have a lot of Followers, which will be missed.

Many publicly visible Blogger blogs have Following communities which vastly exceed my 4700 member population (my "Follow Me" gadget, as of April 2013) - and the possibility of losing those communities will not be willingly accepted by everybody. The integration of Following with the newsfeed subscription - and with the dashboard Reading List - is not automatic with Google+ Circles.

A blog with multiple authors (aka "team blog") will have either a Google+ Circles gadget for only one author - or multiple Circles gadgets, to fairly let people subscribe to the various authors Google+ streams. Neither solution will be exactly equal to the Following / GFC blog feed subscription - especially if the various team members are similar to me, and my range of interests.

Right now, it appears that a blog can have just one Circles gadget. How team membership blogs will use Google+ is another question to ask.

Many blog owners have multiple interests - and publish multiple blogs.

Similar to the team blog, we may wish to consider the multiple interests of each blog owner. I am one person, with a number of interests.

People who have intentionally subscribed to the newsfeed from this blog, and are specifically interested in my blog about Blogger blogs, may not be extremely interested in my blog about cooking - nor in my blog about jokes, pranks, and miscellaneous ramblings. Unfortunately, if you Follow my Google+ stream, you'll get a bit of each subject.

Some people may use Google+ Collections, to separate their different interests. It's possible that some Google+ Followers are now Following my RBS Collection.

Again, the Google+ Circles gadget appears to contain the total Followers for one person, for all interests of that one person. I have not yet found a tool that will allow me to analyse the interests of each of my Followers, and to accurately determine the specific areas of overlapping, between my own personal interests and theirs.

It will be impossible for many blog owners to keep an accurate Circle complement, and segregate each circle according to interest, so they may Share only relevant material with the specific members of each different Circle.

Integration of Blogger Follower, and Google+ Followers, requires compromise.

As the Google+ Circles gadget evolves, some significant improvements - and some compromises - will be required. Like the Internet, Blogger, and Google, are constantly evolving. This may require compromises by many Blogger blog owners.

We now have a rollup discussion, where each blog owner is asked to provide their thoughts about the above described issues - and possibly, others that concern you. Anybody who experienced the Blogger GUI upgrade of several years ago may, from experience, realise how much better off we may all be, with these issues discussed now - rather than later.

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