14 DAY TRIAL // RSS/Atom feeds may be dead or may be thriving, depending on who you listen to and the day of the week, but even if the protocol hasn't taken the world by storm, just as it's not about to go away any time soon, the need for a way to subscribe to web content and be notified of updates is still very much real.
Blogger is now introducing a new, old way of doing just that. Readers will be able to subscribe to blog posts via email with a new Follow by Email gadget available to all Blogger users now.
"Fresh content is the fuel that drives the blogosphere; it keeps readers coming back to your blog. Our team is always thinking of new ways to connect users with the freshest content across Blogger, and today we’re happy to offer a new, powerful way to do just that with Follow by Email," Ben Eitzen, Software Engineer at Google, announced.
The Follow by Email gadget enables subscribers to not only be notified when new posts are available, but also read the posts in their entirety inside the email message. Installing the feature is as simple as any other Blogger gadget.
"To enable Follow by Email, click the Add a Gadget link from the Design | Page Elements tab, and then select the Follow by Email gadget which should be at the top of the list. Once you add the gadget, readers visiting your blog can then just enter their email address and click Submit," Eitzen explained.
The Follow by Email gadget is based on existing Feedburner technology. This means that users also get access to some stats such as the total number of subscribers as well as the number of daily visitors.
Email subscriptions and newsletters have been making a comeback in recent years and Blogger's new gadget shows that the old technology still has plenty of uses, even new ones, today.