Yes, Hannah, right now that may be the primary way for us to see what is new in our subscriptions. Or, rather, I should say WHO has posted. You notice though that in that right sidebar there is not a blog title mentioned. So you have no idea what they wrote about!!!
Craig I agree - 3 clicks to find it is not necessary. Groups is also missing which makes it harder for those of us that go to certain groups daily.
Featured in BananaTude
OMG I soooooooooooooooooo agree. It's been driving me bonkers. and, the link on top (they way they instructed us to use is broken half the time/not giving right info. I also tried the lower link on home page which clearly is broken. Also, when I clicked on the people I follow, also broken. This is sooooooooooooo FRUSTRATING. I was about to write to them because I need to understand how much longer it will be this way.
this is so time consuming and if it doesn't stop soon, I severely need to reduce commenting and reading on here. This is a huge step backwards. it was a huge improvement a while back when they added the following link, but now that is gone and all the old ways are gone.
this is RIDICULOUS!
It's making me wonder if they did this on purpose to try to increase clicks. and for the last day or two it has for me...along w/ my frustation. If it doesn't change soon, my participation will be reduced.
AR - pls fix this FAST!
Craig, When you first posted the link, I copied your solution to an Outlook sticky note and have been putting it to use. I noticed prior the same as you, just clicking Followed didn't get everyone on my right bar. Your solution works, so thanks for the workaround while we wait for AR to make the permanent fix! Bill
I agree - I have the additional problem of having them out-of-order on the sidebar. AR can't seem to fix this.
Craig, This has been driving me nuts!!!!! I thought maybe I was just an idiot and missed something along the way. And - since they changed this - my comments have dropped to almost nothing. I used to get 20 to 50 comments per blog (if it wasn't too boring) now I am lucky to get 3. Not cool. They need to fix this one big time.
It shouldn't be by topic, that's for sure. I have a ticket in with IT on this.
We are talking about bringing a customizable gray bar to you so each member can pick their top 5 links. Hopefully coming soon.
Looks like Kerrie is on this. I hope we see the fix soon. Thanks for pointing this out.
Throwing my hat into this ring. I know where to find who I'm following, but it takes a bit to get there. Thanks for bringing attention to this, Craig!
All these extra clicks are driving me crazy--I'm not a maze lover and am too Type A to sit and wait.
Lots of extra clicks now. Things get more difficult with time. And this is to impress Google, I understand. But not us so much...
Craig, good catch on those links, that's a goofy design. We will fix that in our next release.
I want to get a little more feedback from the community on the grey menu bar before making any changes. From your viewpoint (or anyone else reading this blog), which of one these options would you remove in order to make room for the "Following" link?
Write a Blog Recent Posts Leaderboard Stats Points
Kris ~ Get rid of Leaderboard.
Craig ~ > Nice way of explaining and catching the links issue!
Anna - check out my appened note at end of post with link to creating a bookmarks bar for your browser. I think now more than ever this is beneficial to have!
you should bookmark activerain.trulia.com/groups as that seems to be another link MIA
Debbie - I knew you'd agree 100%
BLiz - check out my bookmarks suggestion - it would save you a little time too
Margaret - out of order? I wasn't aware of that one - I WISH they would add titles there also so we can see WHAT was posted not just WHO
Belinda - precisely!!! I didn't have the stats to back it up yet but I was sure that the clicks and comments counts would be down - thanks for your confirmation!
Kerrie - Topic = ALL for sure!! but also single click "speed dial" to following newsfeed needs to be there absolutely
Joan - yes our feedback is good and helping them reconsider - next iteration should be better :)
Jimmy - workarounds are good news in the short term
Suzanne - it is like going into Outlook for email and clicking several times before you get to your INBOX - um, not!
thanks Sheila
Norma - click - page load - click click - must get fixed!
Jay - baby out with the bathwater - getting people to the site is one thing - making their experience here not so good is missing something - glad we are talking about it here!
Kris - thanks for joining the conversation :)
First of all where is the rule of FIVE, is this really an SEO problem
why not SIX there is certainly room for it.
meanwhile - I agree with Karen in next comment - Leaderboard is first thing out
that is available on the AR home page and not a frequent click (occasional interest)
this nav bar should be a speed dial!
1 Write a Blog - what we need to keep top of list
2 Recent Posts - meet new people
3 Following - our INBOX!!!
4 Stats - check up on how your recent posts are doing
Points - this is occasional interest but not a speed dial - take it out
keep it on 'My Home' page
5 My Comments - go back to see the followups to what you commented
although if you guys ever institute notifications on comments (like mentions) or have threaded comments then the 'my comments' page would be less necessary to retrace back
but PLEASE!!!!!! put speed dial back for following newsfeed - one click
not click, page load, click list, page load - no good!
thanks for listening! :)
Karen - agree with you on voting off the menu item for something better!
thanks for adding your voice
Lots of ideas what is and what should be. As I am not much of a follower really doesn't matter. But ease of use is something I agree with.
Craig- once again, you step in to help us. I'm still trying to access AR from my iPhone and iPad too. I'm going to try your workaround because this clicking is just too much.
Kerrie - I hope you can fix this soon. I've been trying workarounds the last couple of days and it is driving me crazy. Following is one of the ones I push the most.
Personally, I would change "recent posts" to "following"...and then from there if people want to see all, they can change it. I generally focus on the ones I subscribe to.
Oh Wow! I thought I was going Crazy. I'm glad his was not the case. Ive' also nticed another issue with the mobile site. It's not mobile! on my phone I'm getting the full site when i read a blog post as opposed to getting the mobile version. AR please fix this. Petty please
Ooops. That should have been for Chris.
IMO, Following is THE MOST important/clicked out of all of them. I use that + AR logo to get to featured posts the most. Then, from there, I use points and then write a post and stats are probably tied.
To me, "recent" posts is a corollary to "followed" and I might select all one in 20 times. So, I'd be fine if recent posts were deleted. Leaderboard is fun, and I personally would opt to keep it over recent posts, but I'd surely give it up in order to get "followed" which was the most important one out of all of them.
BTW, is it possible to have 6? It seems like there is space. Not sure if different on ipad. not sure if you can have 2 versions.
But, please please please add "follow" back quickly. The Top Contributor thing may have been a can of worms and a tad annoying, but this really interferes w/ the usability of the site.
Craig - Yes, of course I agree!!!! Thx.
When is the pop up forced at me to check out the top contributors going to disappear? It's more than annoying.
Ahem! Good points and they should be ashamed of themselves. Must be short timers.
Thanks Craig... I noticed, but thank you for articulating it. I hadn't gotten that far yet and was still trying to figure out what exactly happened. I Agree... give us back the following link on the top menu bar.
Craig, thanks for speaking up on this issue and I have noticed missing out on lots of posts because they were not tagged AR Community. As a matter of fact I have started to move more posts into the AR Community setting so they would be seen, even if it was not the best choice.
I could do without the Leaderboard heading in answer to Kris' question.
Craig
It was a disappointment to see this gone Thanks for bringing it up which will hopefully lead to a satisfactory solution. No one likes to have to spend time looking or having to click multiple times to find what used to be so prominent
Jeff
Growing pains and change is never without it's issues, love the comments and help
There are some frustrating changes that need to be worked out Craig, thanks for the link saving idea. It will work for now!
Craig, great information. Some of us are uncertain with some of the recent changes. We understand things change but we dont want to give up features
Change is change. If Active Rain never changed or tried to make the site better for us, it would be a boring place. Figure it out...
Personally, I think points and stats could go back to the left side bar where they used to be and the top bar should be reserved for blog type links such as following, groups, etc. just my $.02
Craig, kudos to you...this last update was a can of worms that just keep coming!
Thanks, Craig, for this post and bringing this to light. Also, can we forego the stupid popup for "top contributors" - seriously, once you have seen it, it's enough.
This update is on par with last years' "no mo spel chek" release 
As an ambassador please,please,please bring this back. One of the things I'm doing for newbies is giving them a list of key people to follow. My fear is a newbie will not take the time/effort to do a workaround.
I am letting you handle all things that are not running optimum....Your talent says so
Craig...I think you have made progress....things are changing. Thanks for being there swinging the bat.
Craig, a couple of the links I often use were moved. It took me a while to find them. Sometimes I don't see the point.
Bill - most are very interested in their subscriptions list, for these it is noteworthy
Laura - thanks for your visit
Kathy - I see AR working on mobile updates, looks like there is still room to grow
Alexa - I've seen the mobile adustments like on the home page and my home page. I'm sure they have plans to keep improving mobile
Debbie - I'm not sure why 5 is some magic number - there is comfortably room for more. I agree that we have opinions on the other links but following is for certain needing to be back!
Jay - agreed - unpop the popup - it should not reappear after you have closed it once
David - well intentioned but just missed a little bit
Rene - peoples blogs are going to have less readers, I can't wait til this is repaired! :)
Sharon/Bruce - yes you caught that too, awkward that all posts would be best tagged activerain until fixed even when that is not the best category for it
Jeff - it was such a welcome addition when it made it to the top nav bar and then poof it vanished :) I'm certain we'll see it back soon enough
Laura - I'm not opposed to new at all. I like things that help in us discovering new things. This was just an oversight
Michelle - ultimately it is better, after the bumps
Tom - glad to share workarounds that I use in the meanwhile :)
Scott - change brings good things, agreed we don't want to step backwards though
Amanda/Jared - I'm a developer too. I totally get the need for change. I'm not a complainer however some changes are an experiment. Wise when you know to back out of something that didn't work as expected. Now let me go chase the kids off my lawn :)
Silvia - I agree Points is not something that should take key position. Stats are very useful to those of us who love to stay on top of page views and monitor interest. Groups would not be a bad choice on the top bar either. Support the Groups :)
Ginny - some things work great, others don't - I appreciate that they are continuing to develop for us though. I have my wishlist of things I'd rather see their time spent on though ;)
Susan - popup be gone! let's hope soon - if you close it once, why can't it be smart enough to know that notification was already seen?
Doug - yes, thanks for lending your voice. Great point about helping new ones and not having to say well do this a, b, c, d workaround
Richie - thanks for thinking so
Sandra - I have no doubt well intentioned. Discussing it now just to highlight it for adjustment
Cindy - time is limited... picking my battles - this one needed attention! :)
Michael - be sure and give thought to my bookmarks bar idea - I really use mine for my favorite destinations. That way I have control of getting to my most often used links.
Craig - thanks for making the request for the top level following link. I got to the folks I was following by clicking on the number after the "following" label, but then I had to go to each one separately. Not at all convenient.
I want my Groups link back , too, Craig. This is driving me nuts. Who cares about the leaderboard except the robobloggers?
Craig, very nice job catching this! On a another note, my posts are not getting any juice and I could not figure out why. Before you could go to blogs easily and see the most recent blogs without going to a topic. If it sounded interesting you would click on it. Now there are to many filters to go through.
I think they should have asked for more input before some of these changes. I don't think you're whining BTW as someone referenced above. Lots of changes do not equal BETTER.
So glad you mentioned this. Although change is good in some respects...some things don't need to change at all. The following link should remain and be fixed.
Craig, Maybe AR can hire you to fix the all the issues created by those who clearly are in over their heads ... referring to those who are working on the platform attempting to make it better ... but not! I vote they hire people with the skill sets to get the job done ... right!
Excellent post, Craig, and I share everyone's frustration. To provide more feedback to Kris' comment (#15), I do not need to see Leaderboard, Stats or Points in the gray menu bar. I am fine with having all of those on the left sidebar. I would like to see Groups on the top bar, however Following would be my #1. I agree with Belinda's comment (#7) in that my comments have gone way down to almost nothing since the change and with Debbie's comment (#4) - it takes way too long to get to where I want to go - so much that I am less likely to make comments because it takes that much longer and it that much more frustrating to get there.
If they do work on the left sidebar, I would appreciate having MY BLOG added there so that I can easily get to it from my home page. Re: Craig's comment #17 - Yes, want to see what was posted, not just who. Re: Debbie's comment (#26) I focus on who I subscribe to and want to see that over 'all'. Therefore, whom I subscribe to is much more important to me than 'recent posts' because I don't want to see what I don't want to see. That is the whole point of subscribing in the first place.
Unless someone has seen this post and knows to use the link that Craig just gave us, then they won't know about this workaround. A newbie or infrequent user of the site is not going to know what to do to find the people they want to follow. and may just give up and not come back. It needs to be more user friendly.
Kris mentions a solution in the next release - when is that expected to be?
Yes please! Bring back the link to Following, and stop the stupid Top Contributors popup from popping up every single time I log on! Thanks for fixing, hopefully soon!
Absolutely! Please bring back the Following tab!!! It is an essential part of many of us being a part of ActiveRain!
Crain I don't like it either. But I think they know they made a mistake and plan to back track on this.
Hopefully they will get all these bugs worked out soon enough. What a pain.
I agree Craig I would like my following people back .But I do find them on my side bar .