Having Google Login Problems? (Android, Chrome, Google+, OAuth, etc.)

If you have experienced or are experiencing problems when trying to sign in to Google services the solution may be simpler than you think. Although there can be other reasons a primary one, albeit not well known, is that you have too many active tokens.

Tokens are created, for example, when you login to third party services with your Google or Google+ account using OAuth, share your Gmail contacts, allow web apps to view your Google Reader subscriptions, sync your Chrome OS or browser data, use Android (phone and certain apps), or use/link any of Google's many services or APIs (Keep, YouTube, Picasa, Drive, Calendar, etc.)

The error message received is usually unclear and varies greatly from each service. You may receive an incorrect password message (the most confusing of all), be unable to connect and see a blank screen, or be told you have too many active tokens. If you have these types of problems while logging in with your Google account email and password to any service, site, or app you can usually rectify it by releasing some account tokens.

Follow these steps to remove authorized connections (tokens) from your Google account:

• Go to the Manage Access to Connected Applications and Sites page (slow to load sometimes)
• Click the "Revoke Access" button next to the connections you want to remove
• Find services you no longer use and remove (it is good to do this anyway)
• Remove some "Sign in using your Google account" items

Note: Removing a connection will not close your account with the other app/service. Although, you will have to use another token if you login there with Google again.

Google would not comment on the number of tokens allowed and I don't know if the limits are service specific. The only text I could find regarding a limit is "there are limits... per user across all clients" on the OAuth 2.0 page. Based on my account I believe the limit to be around 500 tokens. A lot of people may never have this problem, but for people like me that enjoy trying new apps, websites, and services you may hit the upper limit after a while.

Good luck!

Google Affiliate Network Shutting Down [Updated]

Google has quietly announced that the Google Affiliate Network (GAN) will be closing. This appears to be a quick decision, or at least was kept very quiet internally, because they recently created new help videos, have been adding new advertisers, and are active on Google+ and Twitter.

An official closure date has not been announced at this time. GAN vaguely said it will wind down the affiliate network over the next few months, although I received information from an advertiser stating that Google's support will not be available after April 30, 2013.

Update - May 2, 2013 (email notice): All GAN services, except for payment and reporting, will be suspended on July 31, 2013. On October 31, 2013 the remaining services are to shutdown and Google Affiliate Network will be terminated. Payments to publishers will be made for activity through July 31st; after this date you should remove all link/add placements from your web properties. If you are interested in trying Google AdWords and do not currently have an AdWords account please email me for a promotional credit.

I have found affiliate advertising to benefit the advertiser more than any other party involved. Don't get me wrong, that is not a bad thing if you are the advertiser! As a publisher I have displayed Google Affiliate Network ads over the years with little success. The primary reason I did not see meaningful revenue is because I don't have the amount of traffic to generate enough clickthroughs. Even still, most visitors didn't click and the people that did rarely ordered which essentially allowed the seller to get extremely inexpensive display advertisements. I understand Google's decision and feel it is the right choice for them. Many people love it and if you are looking for a new service try AvantLink, ShareASale, and Impact Radius.

Google has other advertising solutions/services such as Product Listing Ads, AdSense, and The Conversion Optimizer that marketers can use.

What do you think about the closing of the Google Affiliate Network? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

The Best Web Based RSS Readers

Are you looking for a new or additional RSS reader? Below you will find our best recommendations based on actual use over a couple weeks of testing more than thirty readers. Each unique service has different features and interfaces allowing you to find one that meets your needs and reading style. We focused on free news reader services that do not require downloading a program and that allow you to easily add and view a specific feed. Response time, stability, usability, design, and trustworthiness were all considered. In alphabetical order:

• Bloglovin' has an easy to use service that supports feed search/discovery as well as manually adding single feeds or multiples through importing. The interface allows you to sort by date or blog, view popular posts by category, and it tracks your unread posts. A standout feature is getting new posts by email.

• FeedBooster is an advanced reader with customizable views, filters, and content searches. Feed discovery is supported along with the ability to manually add a single feed or upload a group of them. It does not display the entire article, therefore this reader is great for title surfing and honing in on a specific topic to monitor in realtime.

• FeedShow is a basic reader with a traditional layout. It lets you organize the feeds you add/import into folders that indicate when there are new items to read. Saving the story locally and converting it to a PDF file are some nice additional features.

• Feedspot has incorporated a social element by adding commenting and the ability to share posts with your friends that use the service. You can add and search for single feeds, read full articles, and see what you have not read.

• Good Noows has over ten different visual layouts for you to choose a suitable style. Subscribe and find feeds or import your feed collection to get started. Clicking on a story opens a pane with the full text for a uncluttered read. Searches can be saved as a label to quickly find specific posts you are interested in.

• Mixtab is a very visual feed reader where one or more feeds are put under tabs that are displayed on the homepage. Clicking the tab shows the posts from the feed(s) which are again clickable to pull up the entire entry. It does not track read/unread items, but would be really good for image feeds. Tabs are created by adding single feeds or with an import file and can be public or private.

• NewsBlur has enhanced its classically styled reader with the ability to follow other users, share stories to your internally hosted blog, and train the system to recognize what you like. Organizing the feeds you add is simple and it shows your unread counts. The full item is shown so that you do not have to click through. To read it in the original format you can use the "original" feature to see the actual webpage in place of the feed text.

• Subpug's clean design and focus on content is excellent. Reading and navigating your unread items for one or all feeds is simple and quick, and using their list view also enables for fast skimming when you don't want to see the full post. The screen to add and edit feeds is effective and boasts a feature to remove stories based on keywords of your choosing.

• The Old Reader is a very traditional reader with the ability to follow other users and see trending posts. Subscribing and importing is supported and you can share posts with your followers as well as like and comment on them to start a conversation. The full story is presented, but you can set it to only show the titles using the list view.

While many readers (new and old) were researched for this post most were found to be lacking some of the features that make a full RSS reader useful and efficient. Current news aggregation and consolidation services that surface trending stories are extremely useful and proficient, but are not good at reading and following a specific blog feed. With the coming closure of Google Reader some feed readers that are currently limited to certain platforms are working to open up and new players are coming on the scene. If new RSS readers perform well they will be added to this post.

What feed reader(s) are you using? Share your recommendations in the comments below.