Well looky here, Aunt Peaches got a facelift.
Is it weird to talk about yourself in the third person?
Yeah. Probably.
Okay. Well, the bandages are off, the stripes are gone, and a new blog look is here to stay!
Yes, I’ll say it again: the stripes are gone. Don’t be sad. I’ll miss them too but it is time to move on. The stripes were distracting from my photographical mojo and I’m in the mood for something clean. Something fresh. Something glittery.
I’ll be making gradual updates over the course of the next week, so if you see something funky, bear with me. I’m working on it.
As long as we are talking about updates in technology, I want to take a minute to address a couple of not-so-fun matters of bidness. Please skim over the three points below and see if any apply to you.
1. Do you read these posts in your email inbox?
There is a possibility that my posts could be disappearing sometime soon (same goes for many of the other blogs you subscribe to). Feedburner, the service that handles these subscriptions, is going away. I guess there is no money in running ads in inboxes. I am going to try and migrate to an alternate service, but I have heard horror stories from people migrating to free services and the alternatives are expensive. So, all of this is to say, if my posts should disappear from your inbox in the next few months, please pop by the website for a second to sign up for whatever new service I eventually put in place. My apologies for the inconvenience.
2. Do you follow blogs on Facebook? (Any blogs – not just mine).
You have probably seen these messages popping all over the place:
Facebook now requires page administrators to pay to promote their updates in order to be seen by readers. If we do not pay to promote our posts, less than 10% of you will ever see the updates.
This has already happened. I can see from my stats in recent weeks that less than half of you ever see my facebook posts and it drops more every week. I have also seen Facebook users who refuse to believe this is happening. Like, they think Facebook shows them everything their friends and fan pages put out. If you are one of them, My Dear, this is not true. When I log into my personal account, even I do not see all of Aunt Peaches’ posts in my feed. Considering the facet that I am Aunt Peaches, it fair to assume Facebook is removing this content (and much more). Why? Because Facebook wants fan page administers like me to pay to promote their posts. Why? To generate profits. Appease stock holders. Whatever. All I know Is there are two things you can do about it:
- Open the fan page (here is mine), hover the mouse on the gear symbol next to the “Like” button. In the pop-up select “ADD TO THE INTEREST LISTS”. Easy Peasy, that’s it.
- (Note: and this one goes for your personal friends, fan pages, businesses you follow, etc) If you see a post you like, give it a thumbs up. It’s that simple. Make a point of doing this every-so often. Nobody can figure out the Facebook algorithm for what shows up in our status feed and what doesn’t, but, it is clear that if we periodically tell Facebook that we “like” content from a certain source it will show up more often.
*Side note rant: If you are one of those people who clicks “Hide from feed” as soon as you are finished reading something: STOP IT. Seriously. I know you are just tidying up your feed, and that’s nice, but by doing so you are essentially providing negative feedback, telling Facebook that the content you just hid is somehow inappropriate or offensive and should also be hidden from others. Talk about a party pooper! Okay. Rant over.
3. Do you have technical trouble leaving comments on this blog?
I can’t even tell you how frustrating this is. Sorry guys. At least once a week I get an email from someone who says they wanted to leave a comment but, for whatever reason, couldn’t get it to work. I have to apologize because I don’t know what to about this. A year a ago I used to get lots of comments and lots of spam….so I switched to a comment service, Disqus, which is apparently very difficult for some people to use. Especially over the last couple of months. Uninstalling Disqus is a sticky process…so, I’m not sure how I am going to rectify this issue. If you have this problem, could you do me a favor? Email me (emailauntpeaches (at) gmail.com) or tweet me what sort of internet browser you are using. Before I fix the issue or switch services, I need to identify the problem, and that is really hard to do when I cant see the problem on my end.
Are you still here? Man, this might be the most long-winded, boring blog post I have ever written. If you have stuck around this far you are a true friend. Thanks, Friend! Pretty stuff to follow shortly, I promise 🙂
No way! This was not boring at all… in fact, very helpful. Thanks for the tips! — P.S. I do miss the stripes already – but I’m always in favor of bling. Go glittery Peaches! Love the new look.
I know. I’ll miss them too. I used teh stripes specifically bc I thought they’d be a great ‘landmark’ to remind folks where they are…but sadly, they are competing with content. Times are changin…
🙂
Like your new glitter! 😀
It looks great! Not going to lie…I”ll miss the stripes. I might forget where I am for a second. But then the glitterfied header will remind me..cause it’s awesome!
Not boring!
1. Looooove the new look!!!! 2. Interesting info about Facebook – I am not on there so I don’t understand half of what you just said, but I get the drift….what a pain. Facebook, why are you like this? 3.. Argggh and blargh to the Feedburner issue, too. Why is this so hard? 4. I have not had trouble with the comments, I use Firefox.
Thanks Audra, I like it too!
“delightfully tacky yet refined” — this is exactly what I was going for. Thanks!
Girl, you need to get on the facebook. I could look at pictures of your dog and we could swap tips on movies and trashy novels and black velvet paintings. It’s gonna be great!
Ilove your new looks. Fresh an clean!
I’ve never had any problems leaving comments here so far… can’t tell you anything about fb and feedburner. Luckily, I don’t use them.
You are duly added to “my interests,” Auntie dear. Thank you for the explanation about negative feedback. I’m page administrator for the Antique Mall where I work/sell stuff and have been mystified about what is happening when one person gives negative feedback on every. single. post. Nice to know I’m most likely not pissing off the same person over and over.
Will you pay to promote? I’ve been tempted to try for $5 or $10 – available to me since our page is at around 600 followers. But dang if I just can’t get over feeling like I’ve been played for a chump.
Love the new look!
You don’t even know how long I spent debating stripes or spangles, stripes or spangles, stripes or spangles…… this went on for months. Then I upgraded my monitor a few weeks ago and saw how overpowering the stripes are on a wide screen. The spangles won (as they always do!)
The glitter makes me smile and looks delightfully tacky yet refined. I have no problem accessing your comment section from firefox on both Mac and PC…as a webmaster by profession, something tells me IE is causing all the problems, it is the browser that gives me constant headaches at my job.
Thanks Centi!
Thanks Robin, that is very helpful to know 🙂
I had trouble commenting in the past, but now with Chrome it seems to be working for me.
I’ll miss the stripes but I understand not wanting a distracting background.
P.S. I’m that person that pinned a card idea of yours sometime a while ago and then made a comment about it being tacky… I’m sorry about that! I actually really like your stuff (your stolen leaf wreath was really nice!) 🙂 I just have a different style. I’ve been haunted by my rudeness.
Thought I’d answer your questions! Hope these help. #1) I subscribe to several blogs and typically read 75% of them. #2) I don’t follow blogs on FB because I’m not really on FB on a daily basis. #3) I haven’t had issues posting comments on blogs. Love your new look!
Jillian — seriously, don’t worry about it! I read a bunch of not-so-nice comments about my work on Pinterest all the time….none of them have been truly mean or rude. However, I make a point to let people know that us blogger can see (and do see!) everrrrrything that people write about our stuff on Pinterest, just in case anyone should feel compelled to write something truly hurtful (which is another thing I see all over the place). Just getting the word out!
Glad you stuck around, Jillian:)