It is official now. Feedburner has been defenestrated and FeedBlitz has been given a seat of honor at the dining room table.
Yep ladies and gent Winter is Coming and it became clear to me that FeedBurner wasn’t getting the job done any longer. For a good long while it served me faithfully and I am grateful for that time but I am a writer and I cannot work with unreliable tools and resources.
For those who are unfamiliar with this saga here is the news and information you need to know. FeedBurner is a free service provided by Google that helps to distribute your RSS feed to those who wish to use it to read the content you produce on your blog.
It is not something that you have to have or use but it was useful because it provided some tools you could use to measure your blog’s performance and it provided an option for people to receive and read your content via email.
The fact that it was free was a bonus.
Imagine Google Is Tony Soprano
Imagine that Google is Tony Soprano. Now pretend that FeedBurner has turned state’s evidence on Tony. What do you think Tony would do? Well, I am willing to bet you agree that Tony wouldn’t let a rat like FeedBurner hang around for very long.
Of course Tony would never admit or confirm that he put out a contract on FeedBurner but word on the street moves quickly and pretty soon it would become clear that FeedBurner had no where to hide.
Well, the word from our sources is that good old FeedBurner will soon be sleeping with the fishes which is why I moved services ‘cuz I can’t until FeedBurner  gets whacked.
So you can tell Tony that I am not going to go to war over this little incident. TheJackB family and the Sopranos are on the same side here, but not because of fear. No, it is because I like the service that FeedBlitz offers and I am very curious to see if it lives up to its billing.
It is far more powerful than FeedBurner and offers many more options, not to mention service which is something that FeedBurner has given up on. Great customer service by itself is not enough but when combined with a superior product that solves your particular problems, well then you are talking about something special.
What I Like About It
What I like about FeedBlitz is that it is easy to use and that it makes it simple to distribute my content in a number of ways that FeedBurner did not do. It provides more tools and resources and I see an opportunity to help grow this blog.
I spent time reading posts and some of the transition stories and that helped to push me over the top. I should add that I know a bunch of the bloggers who are linked in that transition post and that helps.
Heck, I’ll give you three links to three other posts about this and you can see what others had to say.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that I signed up for a free 30 day trial and I am going to use this time to evaluate the service and see if it does what it promises to. If it works the way I need it to I will continue to use it and if not, well I’ll search for an suitable replacement.
I kid around about being an insouciant daddy blogger but I am on a mission and my focus is upon doing what it takes to make my goals into the accomplishments and to turn my dreams into reality.
Stay tuned and I’ll keep you posted on how thing develop. BTW, here is my new feed:
http://feeds.feedblitz.com/thejackb
Hi Jack:
Thank you for this post and welcome to FeedBlitz! Sorry I didn’t comment earlier…
Best,
Phil Hollows @phollows
CEO, FeedBlitz
http://www.feedblitz.com
FeedBurner Migration Guide: http://www.feedblitz.com/the-feedburner-migration-guide/
I have switched to FeedBlitz as well, and I’m very impressed by what I’ve discovered so far.
Thanks for this rundown, Jack. As usual, I’m behind the curve when it comes to social media stuff. My current feed is through FeedBurner; looks like I should figure out what my next step should be.
I appreciate the Tony Soprano analogy. If Google is Tony, who is Yahoo? What about (Ba-da-)Bing? 😉
Hi Kristen,
I could have sworn I replied but I don’t see it, my apologies. Who is Yahoo? Well if Marissa Mayer doesn’t fix things Yahoo! is going to suffer the same fate at Big Pussy.
Is there a way to automatically transfer current email subscribers to Feedblitz or do you have to ask people (ugh) to sign up again?
Hi Nina,
FeedBlitz offers a migration service that is supposed to help make that an easy and smooth transition.
Hi Nina, I work at Feedblitz. To answer your question, you don’t always have to get people to subscribe again. If they read via RSS only there’s no re-subscription.
If they read your blog via email, FeedBlitz asks them to reconfirm their subscription – and we suggest you encourage your readers to do this e.g. host a contest for subscribers to the new feed.
Our support team would be pleased to help you.
And take a read of the migration guide http://www.feedblitz.com/the-feedburner-migration-guide/
Rebecca
I’ve also been reading a lot about FeedBurner closing down, though thought it was best to wait till it literally happens Jack!
The only thing of course remains that unlike FeedBurner that was a free service, FeedBlitz is paid, depending on the number of subscribers I think. But I guess you made a timely move to FeedBlitz and reminded all of us once again about it.:)
Thanks for sharing, and I would be heading right over to go through the links you provided and to check out FeedBlitz as well. 🙂
Hi Harleena,
Yes there is a fee for certain services on FeedBlitz. There are alternatives. Vanita shared some of the reasons why she moved to Mailchimp. I need to double check, but I think it is free for the first 2000 subscribers there and after that there is a fee.
I thought about waiting a bit longer and decided I would rather start working on alternatives so here we are.
I will keep you posted as to how it all goes.
Yea! I’m hoping this means your feeds will appear in my Triberr stream now? I know I need to make the change, basically because everyone seems to be writing about it. I hope to have a chance to do that after the iPhone 5 launch…
I hope so too. Still not sure why they appear in some of my tribes and not others. It is weird.
the google drama continues. GFC – gone. Feedburner -sinking. I here now you can’t even buy your own domain name through blogspot anymore. the option that takes you to godaddy and gets you your own .com for ten bucks is gone. Long Live Youtube! lol. i left feedburner last week too. I considered feedblitz but mailchimp has been super dependable and i like having everything all in one place. i also like being able to place special info in my rss feed email’s footer without looking spammy. like a list of my services and a blog roll of my fav blogs. so now…where’s that subscribe button?
I am getting fed up with all of this tech drama. Damn people ought to let well enough alone, but no. They would rather buy their competitors and let them die.
Anyhoo, as I mentioned on your blog there is always a chance I might move. I want to give FeedBlitz a chance to show me what it can do and then we’ll see what is what.
I am definitely not going to to deactivate the Jetpack subscription option any time soon. It doesn’t offer as many metrics as I might like, but it is free and reliable.
i like the jetpack option. it’s how i’m subscribed to your blog by email. if you do stop using it let a sistah know so i don’t miss out on anything.
I feel pleasantly drowsy as I let all this tech-talk wash over my consciousness. “eck! Thank heavens I don’t worry too much. 😀 If I panic, I’ll call ghost-buster Vanita. I like the look of Feedblitz – it is far more professional than Feedburner anyway. But MailChimp has that neat clean look 🙂 – friendly, yet professional. I enjoy reading about your experiments, Jack.
Vanita, one can buy the domain via Google Apps @ $ 8 – or so it says. I am about to go check it out now. So stand by for a yell from me because I hate fiddling with CNAME and DNS and “A” something and whatnot.
Jack – always a pleasure to come see you. I thought I should subscribe again to your blog – but when I did it told me I was already subscribed. 🙂
Cheers! Vidya
Hi Vanita,
I’ll let you know if I make any changes. Thus far I like it too damn much to consider nuking it.
Vidya,
I am glad you enjoy it. I am always happy to share the trials and tribulations here.
Sounds enticing. Now, finally, I have your feed in my Google Reader. Don’t tell me Reader is dead too……..BTW, why do you think your posts post twice on Facebook? Are you sure you disabled feedburner….
Hi Ralph,
Google Reader should be working just fine, or so I was told by Larry Page. The reason why my posts showed up twice on the page is because one was placed there by Network Blogs and the other by FeedBlitz.
Jack – you can edit your Facebook settings in FeedBlitz so it does not post to your Facebook account.
Thanks!