Review of Feedburner
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Several months ago, b5media made the choice to move all our feeds to Feedburner. We had actually been looking to do this for awhile, but there were a couple things holding us back. Portable feeds and money. Both of those things were resolved around the middle to end of September.
Over the past few months, we’ve experienced a lot with Feedburner and I wanted to reflect a little on these issues. Our experiences have ranged from stellar to very poor and as a result, I’ve been in close contact with the Feedburner team since.
Actually, I was going to write this post privately but Rick Klau indicated he didn’t mind a public post. Rick’s a good guy despite his bleeding heart liberalism. Really. He’s a good guy. Really. I mean it. He’s a good guy. And he’ll try to get you to vote for Barak Obama. But he’s a good guy. ;-)
The Overview
As I indicated earler, one of our biggest fears in moving to Feedburner was that we would be locked into feedburner branded feeds. Feedburner branded feeds aren’t so bad except for two things. One, we lose our ability to brand the URLs. Two, if we ever went to a competitor, we couldn’t take our feeds (and thus our subscribers) with us. Fortunately, we worked it out that our standard WordPress feeds (click on the Subscribe Link above) redirect to
1 | feeds.b5media.com |
Feedburner feeds. Excellent. Should we ever decide to go to Joe’s Feed Kitchen instead, we can redirect feeds.b5media.com over to Joey and not lose our subscriber base.
Over the past few months, we’ve gotten pretty efficient at pushing Feedburner’s limits. For instance, we like that we can use the Feedburner API to “burn” new feeds directly from our automated blog installer. There are significant problems with the API, but this one works well for us.
We have also implemented channel feeds for each of our channels and a megafeed for the entire network. Neither of these are publicized yet, but they will be. In the meantime, we are using the channel feeds to power the Random Channel bit over on b5media.com.
The Cons
Overall our experience has been a positive one. Therefore, I want to leave you with a good taste in your mouth. So I’ll do the Pros last and instead, start with the cons.
First, the API.
We’re a special bunch at b5media. We have needs that can’t be itched with the normal corner store “itcher”. One of those needs is the ability to not only add a feed (which we can do), but also to add features to a feed like, um, Pro Stats? I’d also like to have API to add a feed to the FAN (Feedburner Ad Network). Again, it’s our itch. All our blogs get Pro Stats. All our blogs go into the FAN.
Secondly, the “My Networks” feature – which is new – is a bit lacking. My Networks is how we create our channel feeds. The concept is simply a network of likeminded blogs. In a more mainstream situation, the implementation is fine. But there should be an advanced tab/screen for those of us that have itchy stuff. For instance, when adding a bunch of blogs to a Network feed, it would be nice to add multiple blogs at a time.
In case the Feedburner folks are listening, your blog listing is very slow in syncing to the rest of the account. When I add a blog in the network, I should immediately see that blog as an option to add to a network. The API also comes into play here. Can’t we add a blog to a Network by an API call? Wouldn’t this be a good thing to tie into the Feed Foundry (Enterprise Feedburner where bulk changes can be made)? I mean, labels assigned in Foundry should be able to get their own feed too, yeah?
The Feed foundry, which I just referred to, is incredibly sluggish. Half the time, queries fail. Too much AJAXy stuff, I think. The UI is poor. The ability to create reports is kludgey. This needs significant improvement.
The Pros
Overall, Feedburner has been a dream. Customer service has been next to nothing. Did I mention that Rick Klau is a good guy? Responsiveness has been phenomenal from their support team. I met with Brent Hill at Ad Tech and he too is a good guy!
Feedburner provides an important service for integrating feed related services. It gives us a birds eye view of how the network is performing in the feed arena and provides some nifty tools for integrating some of our much utilized services.
Overall, very impressed. Hopefully, the guys can address those few issues and we’ll be golden.
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Written by Aaron Brazell on November 29, 2006
Popularity: 3% [?]
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Hey Dick,
Thanks for hopping by. Rick was teasing me with a few of the enhancements this morning. Looking forward to seeing them.
-a
Hey Dick,
Thanks for hopping by. Rick was teasing me with a few of the enhancements this morning. Looking forward to seeing them.
-a
Hey Dick,
Thanks for hopping by. Rick was teasing me with a few of the enhancements this morning. Looking forward to seeing them.
-a
Hey Dick,
Thanks for hopping by. Rick was teasing me with a few of the enhancements this morning. Looking forward to seeing them.
-a
Hey Dick,
Thanks for hopping by. Rick was teasing me with a few of the enhancements this morning. Looking forward to seeing them.
-a
Hey Dick,
Thanks for hopping by. Rick was teasing me with a few of the enhancements this morning. Looking forward to seeing them.
-a
Don’t forget about putting your comments through Feedburner as well.
What Feedburner really needs is a service for subscribing to individual comment threads via email so you don’t have to put your domains at risk, but then the emails would have to be a little more frequent compared to the daily updates
Don’t forget about putting your comments through Feedburner as well.
What Feedburner really needs is a service for subscribing to individual comment threads via email so you don’t have to put your domains at risk, but then the emails would have to be a little more frequent compared to the daily updates
Don’t forget about putting your comments through Feedburner as well.
What Feedburner really needs is a service for subscribing to individual comment threads via email so you don’t have to put your domains at risk, but then the emails would have to be a little more frequent compared to the daily updates
Don’t forget about putting your comments through Feedburner as well.
What Feedburner really needs is a service for subscribing to individual comment threads via email so you don’t have to put your domains at risk, but then the emails would have to be a little more frequent compared to the daily updates
Don’t forget about putting your comments through Feedburner as well.
What Feedburner really needs is a service for subscribing to individual comment threads via email so you don’t have to put your domains at risk, but then the emails would have to be a little more frequent compared to the daily updates
Don’t forget about putting your comments through Feedburner as well.
What Feedburner really needs is a service for subscribing to individual comment threads via email so you don’t have to put your domains at risk, but then the emails would have to be a little more frequent compared to the daily updates
Don’t forget about putting your comments through Feedburner as well.
What Feedburner really needs is a service for subscribing to individual comment threads via email so you don’t have to put your domains at risk, but then the emails would have to be a little more frequent compared to the daily updates
Don’t forget about putting your comments through Feedburner as well.
What Feedburner really needs is a service for subscribing to individual comment threads via email so you don’t have to put your domains at risk, but then the emails would have to be a little more frequent compared to the daily updates
Don’t forget about putting your comments through Feedburner as well.
What Feedburner really needs is a service for subscribing to individual comment threads via email so you don’t have to put your domains at risk, but then the emails would have to be a little more frequent compared to the daily updates
Don’t forget about putting your comments through Feedburner as well.
What Feedburner really needs is a service for subscribing to individual comment threads via email so you don’t have to put your domains at risk, but then the emails would have to be a little more frequent compared to the daily updates
Don’t forget about putting your comments through Feedburner as well.
What Feedburner really needs is a service for subscribing to individual comment threads via email so you don’t have to put your domains at risk, but then the emails would have to be a little more frequent compared to the daily updates
Don’t forget about putting your comments through Feedburner as well.
What Feedburner really needs is a service for subscribing to individual comment threads via email so you don’t have to put your domains at risk, but then the emails would have to be a little more frequent compared to the daily updates
Don’t forget about putting your comments through Feedburner as well.
What Feedburner really needs is a service for subscribing to individual comment threads via email so you don’t have to put your domains at risk, but then the emails would have to be a little more frequent compared to the daily updates
I like Feedburner’s capabilities but their interface could use some help. I had a hard time finding out what exactly things like “link splicer” would achieve.
As well, I fear for feed analytics companies. As RSS becomes mainstream, aren’t the big boys (web analytics) simply going to add this functionality and swallow them up? What’s the future of feed analytics?
I like Feedburner’s capabilities but their interface could use some help. I had a hard time finding out what exactly things like “link splicer” would achieve.
As well, I fear for feed analytics companies. As RSS becomes mainstream, aren’t the big boys (web analytics) simply going to add this functionality and swallow them up? What’s the future of feed analytics?
I like Feedburner’s capabilities but their interface could use some help. I had a hard time finding out what exactly things like “link splicer” would achieve.
As well, I fear for feed analytics companies. As RSS becomes mainstream, aren’t the big boys (web analytics) simply going to add this functionality and swallow them up? What’s the future of feed analytics?
I like Feedburner’s capabilities but their interface could use some help. I had a hard time finding out what exactly things like “link splicer” would achieve.
As well, I fear for feed analytics companies. As RSS becomes mainstream, aren’t the big boys (web analytics) simply going to add this functionality and swallow them up? What’s the future of feed analytics?
I like Feedburner’s capabilities but their interface could use some help. I had a hard time finding out what exactly things like “link splicer” would achieve.
As well, I fear for feed analytics companies. As RSS becomes mainstream, aren’t the big boys (web analytics) simply going to add this functionality and swallow them up? What’s the future of feed analytics?
I like Feedburner’s capabilities but their interface could use some help. I had a hard time finding out what exactly things like “link splicer” would achieve.
As well, I fear for feed analytics companies. As RSS becomes mainstream, aren’t the big boys (web analytics) simply going to add this functionality and swallow them up? What’s the future of feed analytics?
I like Feedburner’s capabilities but their interface could use some help. I had a hard time finding out what exactly things like “link splicer” would achieve.
As well, I fear for feed analytics companies. As RSS becomes mainstream, aren’t the big boys (web analytics) simply going to add this functionality and swallow them up? What’s the future of feed analytics?
I like Feedburner’s capabilities but their interface could use some help. I had a hard time finding out what exactly things like “link splicer” would achieve.
As well, I fear for feed analytics companies. As RSS becomes mainstream, aren’t the big boys (web analytics) simply going to add this functionality and swallow them up? What’s the future of feed analytics?
I like Feedburner’s capabilities but their interface could use some help. I had a hard time finding out what exactly things like “link splicer” would achieve.
As well, I fear for feed analytics companies. As RSS becomes mainstream, aren’t the big boys (web analytics) simply going to add this functionality and swallow them up? What’s the future of feed analytics?
I like Feedburner’s capabilities but their interface could use some help. I had a hard time finding out what exactly things like “link splicer” would achieve.
As well, I fear for feed analytics companies. As RSS becomes mainstream, aren’t the big boys (web analytics) simply going to add this functionality and swallow them up? What’s the future of feed analytics?
I like Feedburner’s capabilities but their interface could use some help. I had a hard time finding out what exactly things like “link splicer” would achieve.
As well, I fear for feed analytics companies. As RSS becomes mainstream, aren’t the big boys (web analytics) simply going to add this functionality and swallow them up? What’s the future of feed analytics?
I like Feedburner’s capabilities but their interface could use some help. I had a hard time finding out what exactly things like “link splicer” would achieve.
As well, I fear for feed analytics companies. As RSS becomes mainstream, aren’t the big boys (web analytics) simply going to add this functionality and swallow them up? What’s the future of feed analytics?
I like Feedburner’s capabilities but their interface could use some help. I had a hard time finding out what exactly things like “link splicer” would achieve.
As well, I fear for feed analytics companies. As RSS becomes mainstream, aren’t the big boys (web analytics) simply going to add this functionality and swallow them up? What’s the future of feed analytics?