Recently I received an email from Google and then a notice posted on Blogger re some changes that may affect the blog if my readers or myself use Google Plus. I don't have a clue what they mean (I'm on Google + on my tablet, but only on plain google on my laptop as far as I can tell). I tried following their directions for saving any photos and comments, but didn't understand them, and don't have room on my laptop for storing over 10 years of blog posts and tens of thousands of blog photos or comments (I do have the photos stored on my own computer and backup harddrives, but not within the blog posts). So....just a head's up that it is quite possible that some posts, some photos, and some comments - or even my whole blog template - may disappear. I'm not interested in learning a completely different platform like Wordpress, so it is what it is. As I saw no visible change to the blog on the announced date of Feb 4, I'm hoping I am safe, but the final consequence won't be known until March sometime, possibly April (according to the most recent email on the topic). Here's what was posted by Blogger on the Blogger site:
Following the announcement of Google+ API deprecation scheduled for March 2019, a number of changes will be made to Blogger’s Google+ integration on 4 February 2019.As I said, I'm not interested in learning a different blog platform or trying to figure this out, so there is a chance this will be the end of my blogging career. I'll try to post a blog or photo at least once a week to see if things are still working - but I won't know if the comments are working unless you comment (I will still moderate them, so even if they are working it could take a day before they show up).
Google+ widgets: Support for the '+1 Button', 'Google+ Followers' and 'Google+ Badge' widgets in Layout will no longer be available. All instances of these widgets will be removed from your blog.
+1 buttons: The +1/G+ buttons and Google+ share links below blog posts and in the navigation bar will be removed.
Please note that if you have a custom template that includes Google+ features, you may need to update your template. Please contact your template supplier for advice.
Google+ Comments: Support for Google+ comments will be turned down, and all blogs using Google+ comments will be reverted back to using Blogger comments. Unfortunately, comments posted as Google+ comments cannot be migrated to Blogger and will no longer appear on your blog.
Edited to add: I have noticed a significant lack of response and/or views for the last post I put up ("House Arrest"), so it is possible that it has already been affected.
