We’ve now had some time to experience and possibly adjust or adapt to the new changes in the WordPress Reader. How are you handling it?

There has been some applause for the return of the word count. Yay!

My eyes have adjusted to the larger text. It was a shock for the first few days, but now it looks normal. However, I still regret that one post very often takes the entire screen height on my rather large monitor. It takes much more scrolling to read the same number of posts. Very likely, this means that more readers are giving up sooner, so more posts are going unread.

Indeed, I’ve noticed that I get more or much less activity depending on the timing of the post. If people are checking their posts after several hours, anything buried down at the bottom is less likely to get attention.

That popup window is still annoying and requires several extra clicks (unless you click on the word count). If you actually make it to the blogger’s site, you’ll see something new at the bottom of the post. It will show a few related posts. Unfortunately (perhaps), these seem to be automatically generated. These may help to generate interest in prior posts.

A second complaint about the popup window is that many readers aren’t making it to the blogs. They miss out on the design of the blog and content geared toward the target audience. This really affects bloggers who have something for sale on their blogs. Those who have paid for upgrades aren’t happy about the new Reader providing a means of reading the blog without visiting the site. If they choose to only show a portion of the blog in the Reader, hoping to lure the reader to their site, they run the risk of the reader giving up because it’s too many clicks.

The WordPress forum specifically devoted to this issue is now 10 pages long. You can find it by clicking here. There is talk of reading blogs in bloglovin’ that might be worth checking out.

Here are my previous posts on this issue:

• https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/11/07/temporary-fixes-wordpress-reader-problems/
• https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/update-on-the-new-wordpress-reader/?relatedposts_exclude=1066
• https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/11/01/new-wordpress-reader-what-do-you-think/
• https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/11/01/share-your-opinion-about-the-new-wordpress-reader/

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing), Facebook page, Twitter