Goodbye, Feedburner! Hello, Ownership of Our Platform
Months ago, I wrote about the death of Google Friend Connect (GFC). Many people who used the GFC social media and feed reading service couldn’t believe that Google would drop a service used by so many. When it died, people lost blog readers and newsletter subscribers.
Rumors are swirling that Google is at it again, this time with their Feedburner service. You might be familiar with Feedburner if you’ve subscribed to a site’s RSS feed.
Many big websites use Feedburner because they provide statistics and tracking for their subscriber numbers and popular feed items. Many large author-related websites currently use Feedburner, including Dear Author, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and Write to Done.
Smaller websites (like myself) signed up with Feedburner because they provide readers with email subscriptions to new blog posts. Users of the free WordPress.com blogging platform have the benefit of email subscriptions, but those who use the paid version of WordPress.org or another blogging platform need a different solution to offer an email option.
Is Feedburner Dying Out?
Several months ago, Google announced they were going to turn off the Feedburner API on October 20, 2012. Most people weren’t sure what that meant and promptly ignored the announcement. I’m no programmer, but I think that means any program connecting to Feedburner will no longer work, such as apps, widgets, or plugins to redirect a blog’s feed to Feedburner.
Hmm, on second thought, that doesn’t sound good.
People really started panicking over the past week and a half when evidence came to light leading to the conclusion that Google might be abandoning Feedburner. They shut down their Twitter account and blog, they let Japan’s Feedburner domain expire, they took several days to fix a glitch in Feedburner Statistics last week, and they’ve turned off AdSense for Feeds, their sole source of income from running the service.
Taking Control of Our Platform
Any time we depend on someone else to do something for us, we lose our control over the situation. Add in the label of “free,” and we can’t even complain much. “Free” things always come with strings attached, and the pieces that make up our online platform are no exception.
Whether Feedburner is on its last legs or not, I decided not to take the chance. As I mentioned in my post on GFC, I try to have my website—my online home—under my ownership. I use the non-free WordPress.org blogging platform and have my own hosting provider.
But I admitted in that GFC post that I didn’t have ownership of two pieces: the RSS feed for subscribing to my posts (which used Feedburner) and my website’s mobile platform (which used an external website). This maybe-maybe-not dance of Google—after all, they haven’t denied the rumors—was the kick I needed to get rid of my dependency on those other free services.
My Steps to Independence
I paid $4 for a mobile theme (for use with the Thesis WordPress theme) that lives on my website, not someone else’s. If you use a smart phone or tablet to access my site, you’re seeing a big difference today. I once again was making up CSS and PHP programming as I went along, so let me know if you see anything weird.
A “Switch to Mobile” or “Switch to Desktop” link is at the bottom of every page if you’d like to check it out. And let me know if you have design feedback. The mobile version of my website is very much a work in progress.
Despite the programming involved, building a mobile website was easy compared to deciding how to replace Feedburner. Most articles about the exodus from Feedburner admit there isn’t a good replacement for all their functionality and statistics unless you’re willing to pay $10 a month or more. No thank you. Instead, a few (free) plugins later, and I have control of my RSS feed, email subscribers to my blog posts, and some rudimentary RSS stats. Yay!
How Feedburner’s Death Could Affect Us as Readers
If you use a feed reader, such as Google Reader, to keep up with new blog posts of your favorite blogs, there’s a chance some of the sites in your reader will either drop off or freeze on October 20th. Like with the GFC issue, no one is sure what will happen and Google isn’t talking.
To get an idea of how this could affect us as readers, I opened Google Reader and hovered my mouse over each blog title in my “Subscriptions.” At the bottom of my browser window, the link for several of the blogs in my reader listed “feed.feedburner.com” somewhere in the URL address. We can keep an eye on those sites and see if they drop off our Google Reader or if they stop updating after the 20th.
How These Changes Affect My Readers
I’ve tried to make this transition as seamless as possible for all of you.
- If you currently receive emails of my blog posts:
You shouldn’t need to do anything. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that my import of your email addresses this afternoon goes smoothly. You’ll know Thursday, when (if all goes to plan) the email of my Thursday post arrives with a different look.
The emails will still be sent from the same newsletter@jamigold.com address, so I hope they won’t all land in your spam folder. However, you might want to add that address to your email address book if you’ve noticed missing emails before.
- If you currently read my blog posts from a feed reader:
Most of you should receive my posts just fine. From what I can tell from the stats, only 95 of you have your readers set to point to Feedburner directly. I’d tried setting up my Subscribe links to try to maintain some amount of control over my feed, but my tricks didn’t catch everyone.
Your feed reader entry for this blog should point to https://jamigold.com/feed/. Click on the link if you’d rather start over to make sure you have the right feed.
These posts will also change a bit due to the transition, as they’ll no longer have the pretty integration to share to Twitter or Facebook. I’m still looking into options.
- If all this talk about getting updates of every post has made you curious:
Click on this link to go to my Subscriptions page. From there, you can sign up for my blog posts by email, by your internet browser’s default feed reader, or by a selection of several other feed readers.
I’ve also updated the email subscription form in my sidebar to handle subscriptions for both new blog posts as well as news about books and freebies. This is the same email form as on the Subscriptions page.
(And I apologize if any of this is confusing. Honestly, it’s a miracle if this makes any sense. It’s currently 4:30 a.m. Tuesday morning after only 3 hours of sleep the night before. *sigh* My aunt died yesterday morning after an emergency trip to the hospital last week, and between that emotional blow and this unplanned redesign/reprogramming of my website, I’m really short on sleep.)
Now, I don’t mean for any of this to sound alarmist. There’s a possibility that the shutdown of the Feedburner API won’t affect you or anyone you know. And we can’t possibly literally own all the pieces of our blog, as we don’t plan on turning our home office into an internet server farm.
However, it’s always a good reminder to occasionally weigh the costs and risks of our choices. It wasn’t worth it to me to buy the mobile theme and take the time to do the programming until the plugin I had been using started inserting third-party advertising above my website on mobile devices. *Grr* Gee, all of a sudden, that $4 sounded like a bargain. *smile*
Are you familiar with Google Feedburner? Had you heard these rumors of its demise? Do you use a feed reader or is this all Greek? How much of your blog do you own? How much don’t you own? Do you worry about any of those pieces you don’t own? Do you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about the changes I’ve made to my website?
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Just checked over the Google Reader subs and about 35% are Feedburner (including yours, which I will update momentarily). Love when companies decide to quietly do away with things that are useful. Thanks for the heads up on this, hadn’t been paying any attention to it but apparently I’ll need to spend a few hours fixing my subs.
I took a look at your mobile version on my phone and it looks great. Thanks for the info and tips, Jami 🙂
Hi Gene,
Aww, thanks for checking out my mobile site and for re-subscribing. 🙂
As for the other sites who use Feedburner, again I’m not sure what will happen to them and their feed. They might work just fine after October 20th or they might not. Some of them might go through a similar feed transfer before then because they don’t want to take the chance, so you’d need to update your links to point to their new feed. Some of them might sit out the changes and hope for the best, in which case, depending on how there website is set up, there might not be another place to point your feed reader to.
For my website specifically, I’ll be deleting my Feedburner feed so I can redirect readers back to my native feed before the 20th hits–just in case. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
Yeah, it looks like everyone’s talking about Feedburner.
I use mostly free tools, but because I lack a reliable, long-term income. Maybe I should consider building a blog fund.
Hi Chihuahua Zero,
Yes, it sucks that we have to put out money for something without a definitive return on investment. I paid the $4 for the mobile theme, but other than that, the only other thing I pay for is my hosting provider (techsurgeons.com–also known as @jaytechdad on Twitter). I’m just enough of a control freak to want to do things a certain way and just enough of a cheapskate to deeply research good free alternatives. 😉 Thanks for the comment!
Hi Jami,
Sorry to hear about your aunt. My condolences to you and your family.
Your being twice bitten by Google mimics what many others have experienced with the various “cloud” services. Even free services have a price – which is why we focus on service instead of the lowest price.
Anyhow, I hope you’re asleep and not yet reading comments. I’ m glad you were able to get everything working so well. Have you considered a career in piracy? I mean tech…
Take care!
-Jay
Hi Tech Guy,
Thank you!
Yes, cloud service can be nice, but we can become too dependent on them. I love Dropbox for automatic backup of my writing files, but I wouldn’t want that to be my sole copy of those files.
Many of the most highly recommended services for RSS feeds and email subscriptions require you to turn over control of your feed and email list to another company. I wanted to “own” that data and not trust that they wouldn’t mess things up.
As you said, even free services have a price, and your level of service definitely makes your price worth it to me. I know I’ve blown up my site a time or two, and you were able to restore it for me because *gasp* you actually have working backups of everything. 🙂 That alone makes you a hero in my book!
As for a new career… You think I would make a good Dread Pirate–er, Techie Roberts? 😉 Thanks for the comment!
I’ve been reading about this, and — honestly — I hardly understand it. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll come looking for you on Facebook. This is why I’m not self-hosted. I’m not tech savvy enough to figure out anything that you just talked about. I freeze up even hearing about it.
And I would need access to your tech guy 24/7.
Hi Jay. 😉
Hi Renee,
LOL! I don’t blame you. 🙂
At RWA, I did the workshop on building a free website because I think that option is the best choice for many people. I certainly don’t think my way is the only way. 🙂 But maybe by thinking about what pieces we own or don’t own, we might decide to do a backup or an export of our website/blog regularly, etc.–just in case.
And no, you can’t have my tech guy 24/7, I need him too much too. LOL! Thanks for the comment!
Don’t worry Jami, I’m planning on making Renee’s son “TechSupport” my minion. *extends pinky finger*
Then I’ll have plenty of time to ensure you’re well taken care of.
-Jay
@jaytechdad
Gee, Tech Guy,
You combine words like “minion” and “taken care of,” and I start wondering if I need to watch out for the cement shoes. 🙂
Um, thanks–I think. LOL!
Wow. I’ve been thinking of “buying” my WordPress domain name, and I was a little worried about my current (and future) email subscribers. I finally figured out my current subscribers shouldn’t have a problem, but now…grr. Fortunately, I know a web designer, so maybe this transition won’t be too hard. Thanks for the info, now go get some sleep 🙂
Hi Amanda,
Just because you buy a domain, that doesn’t mean that you lose the WordPress.com framework that you’re probably using now. In other words, WordPress.com allows you to buy your domain name (so you don’t have the yourdomain.wordpress.com address anymore, just yourdomain.com) and still leave your site on the WordPress.com computers. So you might not have to do anything if you continue to use their built in feed/subscription service.
I use WordPress.org (not .com), so I don’t use WordPress’s computers for my site. It’s the “advanced level” of having a website. 🙂 That choice comes with its pros and cons, which is why I’d never say my way is right for everyone. LOL! Thanks for the comment!
One quick note: most plugins that redirect your feed to FeedBurner are done on your website’s end (through simple redirection), so discontinuing the API has no effect on them. I don’t know if/when Google will shutter FeedBurner itself, but I see no reason why discontinuing the API would affect simple feed delivery (or widgets from FeedBurner itself, such as feed count widgets, etc.).
Now, if we’re talking about a more complicated set up that does involve apps/widgets/etc., I can’t say for sure.
I do think it was wise to use your WordPress feed address!
Hi Jordan,
Yes, simple redirects “should” still work, but the unknowns were driving me crazy. The evidence of Google shutting down everything related to Feedburner has me concerned that it’s only a matter of time until they shut down Feedburner itself. Relying on Feedburner was always something I wanted to get away from, so it was worth it to me to make the jump to being independent. And if I’m preventing issues for my readers down the line, all the better. 🙂 Thanks for chiming in with what you know!
So sorry about your aunt. I use GFC, and my blog is free via Blogger. But all the blogs I read I reach via links through my own blog or, most likely, via a shortcut on my iPhone home screen. I have my faves I never miss. Others I follow via their comments. It works for me. And now, I’m glad I never relied on any of those services.
Hi Nancy,
I’ll keep my fingers crossed that Blogger isn’t next on Google’s chopping block. 🙂 I have many friends like you on Blogger and I’d hate to see them stuck too. Thanks for the comment!
Hmmm, very GREEK to me. Not only did I not have a clue what a feed burner is, or was, but I didn’t know it’s about to end.
I still don’t have a blog, or a website. I need both.
But I get very nervous when I even think about them. There’s so much to worry about, so much to learn, so many things that can go wrong, but so much to miss out on if I continue on this path without either.
I need to reach readers in ways other than just Twitter and Facebook.
But hearing this makes me think that this is all WAY over my head and always will be.
I need to take a class on this stuff.
I’m SO glad you talk about this stuff and bring it to our attention.
Thank you, THANK YOU, for your wisdom.
Have a great evening,
Tamara
Hi Tamara,
LOL! I don’t blame you. 🙂
I started looking into this issue last Thursday, and I seriously thought my head was going to explode when trying to decipher the rumors, the possible problems, the options for switching, etc. Yeah, I didn’t have a fun weekend all the way around. *sigh* Anyway, I think I’ll be offering my website workshop in January (just in time for New Year’s resolutions), and yes, it’s geared toward people who know nothing. 🙂 So stay tuned. Thanks for the comment!
Tamara, when you start seriously thinking about a website hit me up on Twitter with your questions.
-Jay
@jaytechdad
I’m so sorry about your aunt. My husband’s step-father passed away last month after a fall, and it’s never easy to lose someone, no matter how long you have to prepare.
As for the contents of this post, that thump you heard was my head hitting my desk. I’m not tech savvy and am currently without a web person, so I’m struggling every time I need to make a significant change. I already have a list of things I’m not able to do on my own that I have to wait until I can find someone new (and save up the money to pay them).
I hadn’t heard about the potential demise of Feedburner on October 20. I’d planned to switch from Feedburner to MailChimp (free to use for up to 2000 subscribers) when I take my yearly blogging break between Christmas and New Year’s because that’s the soonest I thought I could fit it into my schedule. I was making that change because a MailChimp account is more under my control. (I’d also looked into AWeber because it’s a better service, but it’s more complicated to use and costs even at the basic level.) Now I’m going to have to make the switch sooner since I’m not willing to take the chance.
I don’t have a clue yet how to switch my RSS away from feedburner so that I control it.
Hi Marcy, Thank you. This was one of those bizarre things where she went to the hospital because she was having trouble breathing, and then all of a sudden the hospital steps away and says, “There’s nothing we can do for her. We think she has undiagnosed terminal lung cancer that triggered a fatal buildup of fluids around her lungs. Call Hospice.” That was a serious “What?” moment. To go from thinking antibiotics will clear up what’s probably just an infection to being told someone has 3 days to live… Yeah, it was like that. My dad has been hit the hardest among my close family members. He lost his mom last January and now his big sis. It’s hard to see others struggle for strength. Anyway, I want to emphasize again that nothing might change on October 20th as far as most of us are concerned. I don’t know enough about APIs and what they affect to know what Google’s announcement means. Will some feed readers stop updating because they can no longer talk to Feedburner? Will our plugins to Feedburner stop working? Will stats still be updated? I don’t have a clue, and as you said, I didn’t want to take that chance. Yes, I looked at MailChimp and they were my second choice. I went with the wysija plugin because to upgrade to the unlimited subscriber version down the road, I’ll have to pay only a one-time fee. I like not having too many ongoing expenses. 🙂… — Read More »
THANK YOU! For all this great information. You just saved this non-techie reviewer a HUGE headache and tons of tears.
Hi DiDi,
You’re welcome. 🙂 Let me know if you have any questions. I did a bunch of research and I’m happy to share what I learned. Thanks for the comment!
Thank you so much. I imported all of my feedburner subscribers with no issue. The only problem I had today was only 2 of today’s 4 posts showed up in my automatic newsletter, I have a work ticket into Wysija’s help desk.
Hi DiDi,
Let me know how things go with them. So far, I’ve been really happy, and I was able to import my subscriber list without a problem too. I don’t have multiple posts in a day, so I didn’t test for that.
Do you know how to do a manual newsletter just this one time to send those other posts out? (In other words, yes, it would be a manual pain, and it would send two emails to your subscribers today, but those posts don’t have to go “missing.”) Let me know if you have questions. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
Hi, Jami!
I have your blog on my Google Reader (I use Chrome). I didn’t realize that’s the same thing as feedburner. I know, I’m pathetic. I am so tech-challenged, I don’t even know the features I have before they get taken away, LOL. It doesn’t say feed.feedburner when I wave my mouse over yours, though, just your domain name/2012/etc… A few of my subscriptions say “feedproxy,” though – don’t know what that means. And this whole “mobile theme” thing; not a clue. I remember when I picked the theme (I am self-hosted, too), it said that it was mobile-friendly/adaptable, or something like that. (See how useless I am in the cyber-world? I need a cookie. Sigh.)
I am SO sorry about your aunt, Jami! Hang in there. Why are you writing code? Go get some sleep, and have some pie. (Not necessarily in that order).
Hugs,
Kathy
Hi Kathy, Actually, Google Feedburner and Google Reader are two different products. They’re both services by Google and involve feeds (and this is all very much Greek), so the confusion is easy to relate to. They’re two sides of the same coin. Feedburner sends the feeds, and Google Reader receives the feeds. Think of Feedburner as being like a book distributor. 🙂 They can make blogs easier to subscribe to from a reader perspective. I tried duplicating that ease of subscribing on my Subscriptions page by offering quick links to many different feed reader sites. *shrug* We’ll see. My blog (if you’re hovering your mouse over the name of my blog and not just an article name) should say https://jamigold.com/feed/. What you probably saw was the link in the article name (maybe?). The ones that say feedproxy mean that another site is acting as proxy (a distributor) between the original blog content (the feed of new posts) and the reader (like Google Reader). That feedproxy could be Feedburner, Feedblitz, FeedCat, etc. A mobile theme is the blank page of what your blog will look like on a smart phone or tablet. I had been using one theme where they did all the coding and it was nearly “plug and play” for me. However, they recently started inserting ads. Grr. So I found a better mobile theme that lives on my website and that I could customize to my heart’s content. It’s much better branding than I had before, but it… — Read More »
Thanks, Jami! I’ll have to see what my blog looks like from a mobile device. I don’t have a smartphone or tablet. I’ll have to borrow one of my kids’ iPods, LOL.
Thanks for the cookies! 🙂
Hi K.B.,
Hey, after dealing with all that tech stuff, we all deserve cookies. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
None of it makes sense to me 🙁 I had my son set up my blog (on blogger) and I’m kinda afraid to make any changes. Someday I might consider more of a webpage type thing.
………..dhole
Hi Donna,
I don’t blame you. 🙁 I try not to touch my website very often because it’s always a bigger pain in the butt to deal with than we expect. LOL! Thanks for the comment!
I am safely receiving posts via email! Just a quick virtual hug to say I am sorry for your loss. I know how hard it is when someone passes. One is never prepared.
Hi Fiona,
*hugs* Thank you so much, my friend. Your comment brought a smile to my face. 🙂
Hi Jami, sorry to hear about your Aunt, I had a similar call recently but it was my Dad, he had a stroke, but he actually got to go home after a few days in the hospital. He’s 86, so I expect more of this.
I am clueless when it comes to RSS stuff. I had no idea about this but it makes me wonder if having so much invested on a free site is a smart thing. My blog has been with Blogspot for more than two years and I would hate to lose all that if they decide to close down Blogspot. I had intended to go pro with the blog eventually, but sooner might be here now. Great post as always!
BTW, I have your URL memorized, so I will be back if the feed drops. Yours is one of the few that I don’t miss. 😉
Hi Todd,
*blush* Aww, thanks! 🙂
Hi Todd,
Thank you. I’m glad to hear your dad is okay. I’ll keep him and your family in my thoughts. *hugs* Yes, it’s things like this that can make us feel like we’re too old and our parents are even older. This was the first of my dad’s siblings to go, so I know it’s hitting him hard in the “I might be next” sort of way. He’s fairly healthy, so I’m hoping he inherited his mom’s lived-to-100 genes. 🙂
As for the website stuff, yes, it’s hard to justify spending money on things like that before we’re published and have money coming in. Book covers? Editing? Sure, that’s directly related to our work. Websites/blogs are more indirect, so it’s harder to justify (for me anyway). Then again, I’m a cheapskate and have never even bought an app for my smart phone. 😀
I haven’t heard any rumors about Blogspot, so I think you’re safe for now. 🙂 I’ll let you know if I ever hear anything. Thanks for the comment!
Hi Jami. Great post.
As you know, I’ve recently designed and created my new website. On my own, since I’m a computer freak and not only. 😉
I didn’t use Feedburner, the reason being that I want to have everything on my server. I don’t want databases, especially with other people’s data which I like to consider as confidential (e-mail addresses for example or IP addresses), to be kept on third parties servers which I can not control. I tested a lot of plugins (I don’t use wordpress.com), some of which even crashed my site and had to re-program some things, and I chose one which worked best for me. At least for the moment.
But that’s me. I understand that many people are not PC inclined, so I have nothing against third parties services, but if one can keep as much control over something on their own or maintain a backup choice to save their databases in case a third party service ceases, I think it’s the best solution.
Hi Irene,
And your new website looks amazing! 🙂
Ooo, yes, I’m with you about not wanting the data of those who trusted me with their email addresses living somewhere else. My desire to have everything on my server’s databases is not just about being a control freak, but also about honoring that trust. I’m going to give my newsletter a week or so to see how it works before officially recommending the plugin I’m using, but I think it might work well even for the tech-challenged. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
I’m glad you like it. I saw your comment on my site. Thank you for the visit and the kind words 😀
Of course! You did a great job, Irene, so you deserve the kudos. 🙂
Jami,
I get your posts via email and today’s came through just fine. 🙂 Sorry about your aunt, and I hope you get some sleep SOON!!
Hi Jenny,
Thank you. I’m doing a bit better now.
And yay! Thank you for the feedback on the newsletter working. The Wysija plugin made it shockingly easy. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
[…] Goodbye Feedburner! Hello Ownership of Our Platform by Jami Gold (Feedburner closes down on Oct 20th) […]
YOUR POST IS REALLY NICE AND SHOWING MUCH SENSE IN IT !
BUT I HAVE A QUESTION THAT
SUPPOSE….I AM MAKING MY OWN SUBSCRIPTION FORM AND EMAIL PROVIDING SERVICE TO MY SUBSCRIBERS
BUT I AM THINKING OF EMAILS GOING IS SPAM… HOW TO STOP THAT OR WHAT TO TAKE CARE WHILE DOING SO.
Hi Raj,
I assume you’re asking about ensuring that our newsletters don’t end up in spam? Here’s a link to an article that I read from my newsletter software company about the issue: 6 Golden Rules to Avoid Being Labeled a Spammer. I hope that helps. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
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