DISQUS

Steve Olechowski · 8 months ago

Hi Louis - please keep in mind, that we have chosen to be transparent in our reporting, only using the numbers that readers and aggregators give us when they cache a feed on behalf of subscribers, including Google Reader. These numbers are not specific to FeedBurner/Google feeds, so any other service that reports numbers in a transparent way (versus, say keeping a watermark of the highest number seen, which may or may not be accurate over time) will also report the same dips in subscriber numbers that are seen on the FeedBurner graphs.

We work very closely with the Google Reader team (and other partner RSS readers) on these issues, and always solve them as quickly as possible.

Steve Olechowski
Product Management, Google

phollows · 8 months ago

I agree with Steve in that an RSS service can only report what the aggregators tell it. The thing is, though, looking at the FeedBlitz RSS service logs from last week, the only days (US Eastern) when Google Reader completely failed to report its readership was April 2nd and March 30th. We have numbers for all the other days. So counts reported by anyone on April 3rd and March 31st would have been off. It seems to me that the problems have been much more pervasive than that.

Steve's response here doesn't address the significant delays in updating that the community has seen (which started months ago and was one of the data points that informed our decision to push to build an alternative), and the overall neglect and decay of FeedBurner since Google bought them. Nothing material has happened to FeedBurner's feature set in the last 2 years. Performance and customer service have visibly declined. There's no transparency or responsiveness to problems. Google even managed to rip out the sense of humor you guys had.

Steve, people aren't unhappy and changing to us simply because of a metrics glitch. This problem and Google's inability (or unwillingness) to publicly respond and deal with it has become the visible, public straw that's going to break this camel's back. Dealing with FeedBurner (and the other Google units) as standalone entities in isolation is not working. Dealing with this problem in isolation has not worked in the past and is not working now.

There's no evidence anywhere that Google cares about FeedBurner, its former employees or, most importantly, the publishers and subscribers FeedBurner serves.

It's a tragedy. I'm sorry it's happened to you.

Meanwhile, we at FeedBlitz are more than picking up where you left off. http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?RssFAQ

Louis Gray · 8 months ago

Steve, thanks for the note. Given the regular issues that have impacted the service, what do you recommend? I don't believe I am the only one who is looking for transparency in terms of what is happening at FeedBurner to improve the product. I know I speak for many people when I say we all want Google to do well and for FeedBurner to do well, but the issues have been frequent.

Judging from your comment, are you suggesting the issue is more due to Google Reader instead of FeedBurner? Should we be addressing them instead?

John E. Bredehoft (Empoprises) · 8 months ago

Steve,

Thank you for your response to Louis' issues.

However, as you can see from the comments to Louis' posts, there is clearly an issue that, if not caused by FeedBurner, clearly involves FeedBurner. In my case, I was adversely impacted by 2+ delays of my Blogger posts showing up in FeedProxy.

One thing in your response concerns me - namely, when you talk about Google Reader, you are treating it as an entity separate from your group. While I can certainly understand the dynamics of large companies (I am employed by a large French conglomerate that makes everything from aircraft engines to biometric workstations), the fact remains that FeedProxy/FeedBurner, Google Reader, and Blogger are all products from the same company, and customers expect that Google products will play nicely with each other. Please convey to others in Google that there is disappointment in the user community about the failure of Google products to work with other Google products.

Duncan Riley · 8 months ago

I'm very tempted. Our subscriber counts graphs look like a badly drawn rollercoaster, and last week we lost 1000 subscribers on one feed, only to find 800 restored the next day.

However (there is a catch) the only having the redirect for 30 days is a push. Question is do I feel brave enough to sacrifice Feedburner and risk losing a pile of subscribers (I know from experience that some people never re-subscribe to new feeds)

phollows · 8 months ago

Duncan: I tihnk the best way (in the future) to protect against lock in like this is to have the feeds belong to your domain via a CNAME or redirect and then tie us in under that. Of course that really doesn't help you now in terms of getting out from FeedBurner, but before anyone switches I strongly recommend aliasing the feed to feed.yourdomain.com to eliminate future risk.

Rich Hill · 8 months ago

Very timely post Louis. I wrote about this very problem last week on the webmasterhelp forum and asked the questions, "What is best way to replace feedburner" So far 48 people have read the post but no one has answered. Damn I hate the bother of having to do all the work involved in switching several dozen sites over to Feedblitz, but guess I have to bite the bullet. By the way I thought that I had read some where that Feedblits was also owned by Google, but seems not likely. I just know we are going to lose many subscribers. Thanks for the update.

StevenHodson · 8 months ago

Talk about perfect timing ... I'm definitely going to look FeedBlitz over .. Feedburner is becoming nothing more than a pain in the ass

John E. Bredehoft (Empoprises) · 8 months ago

And it's perfect timing for you to consider another feed service, Steven!

Ahsan Ali · 8 months ago

But their website desperately needs a redesign ...

Social Marketing with Impact · 8 months ago

This is definitely something to consider.
I've noticed myself the mishaps of Feedburner.
Glad to see Feedblitz stepping up to the plate.

Thank you!
Maria Reyes-McDavis

Chris Baskind · 8 months ago

I wrote very critically about FeedBurner a couple months back. Matt Cutts was kind enough to jump in and join the discussion, but what's changed since then?

Nothing.

I took my personal site off FB and went solo, but this is tempting. I think the FeedBlitz blog has a point: If people drop off after the 30-day redirects die, they weren't real subscribers, anyway. I'm going to look at FeedBlitz pretty carefully.

John E. Bredehoft (Empoprises) · 8 months ago

Chris, I can appreciate Duncan's concern about the 30-day redirects, since a loss of subscribers could adversely impact his bottom line.

Chris Baskind · 8 months ago

I don't take it lightly, either. i have a commercial site still on FeedBurner. Haven't moved it yet. Thinking about it.

John E. Bredehoft · 8 months ago

Be sure to check the Disqus comments - Google's Steve Olechowski replied to Louis http://www.louisgray.com/live/2009/04/as-feedbu... (and Louis' reply to Steve's reply can be seen in FriendFeed and Disqus)

Louis Gray · 8 months ago

Thanks, John. The truth is I would love it if Google and FeedBurner would work well. But where are the signs that they will improve and turn things around?

Chris Baskind · 8 months ago

Google is getting good at jumping in on discussion threads when there's a fire. But they don't do much to improve their products.

Jorg Jansen · 8 months ago

I'm going to try Feedblitz after reading Louis article. Sounds promising.

Alex Leonard · 8 months ago

Feedblitz desperately needs a better laid out and designed website.

F. Andy Seidl · 8 months ago

From its very outset, we at MyST could never get fully behind FeedBurner because of its insistence on putting all of its feeds on its own domain. A key element of the MyST Blogsite and Enterprise RSS solutions we build and manage for our clients is that everything is branded with *the client's* brand. And, of course, this includes the domain of the RSS, Atom, and other feeds (e.g., http://rss.intel.com)

We long ago integrated FeedBlitz services into MyST Blogsite solutions and have been consistently pleased with the its performance and support. We'll definitely be looking at is new FeedBlitz RSS service.

F. Andy Seidl
President, MyST Technology Partners, Inc.
http://blogsite.com

craig · 8 months ago

Feedburner needs to make a change or it will lose completely in the future. I know Google has a million other projects, but surprised they really have not perfected Feedburner and improved on it since so many people use it. It's only a matter of time before the next RSS cacher comes out and takes over.

Simon Fodden · 8 months ago

I started with Feedblitz originally -- to provide email subscriptions -- but switched to Feedburner principally because the Feedblitz website was far too confusing with too little clear help and (at the time) effectively no support. Things need to be massively improved on their website before I'd risk my dozen or so feeds.

abrudtkuhl · 8 months ago

Definitely giving this a try on the new blog. Down with Feedburner!

Zuffox · 8 months ago

This article regarding FeedBlitz is somewhat disconcerting. I don't know the development from that point on, for one because the author hasn't done a follow-up (which his last comment would indicate), but at any rate, it doesn't lend to the credence of FeedBlitz being the immaculate alternative to FeedBurner, no matter what you think of the latter.

Can anyone elucidate some of the seeming caveats related to FeedBlitz?

mickerlodeon · 8 months ago

I don't know why anyone uses FeedBurner at all. I use the standard feed on my WordPress install and use Mint to track all my sites stats. FeedBurner is just another link in the chain that can break. I'd rather simplify things and run it all on my own server, this way if anything goes out, chances are, the whole thing went out.

But, there is surely a lot of money to be made with this type of service, if only I could be sure that it would be more consistent and accurate in terms of updating my feed when it changes. When I used to use FeedBurner it didn't update any of the older items in my feed that were updated by me, so if I updated an entry that was 5 items old FeedBurner wouldn't make feed readers see it as a new entry (or updated entry), it just looked like the original.

banking exoert · 8 months ago

I am also use feed burner. But right i think about FeedBlitzed. Banking is my sector, so i don,t know which is best for me!! FeedBurner/FeedBlitzed.

Thanks to share and waiting for you reply.