A few thoughts about blog subscriptions
For six or seven years I’ve used Google’s FeedBurner to send blog posts to those of you reading via email and RSS. But with Google Reader closing, I won’t be surprised to see FeedBurner closed, too.
So what to do?
I could switch to MailChimp for email subscriptions. It lets me migrate email subscribers from FeedBurner, (update: Aweber looks like a better bet) but I don’t know of anything similar for RSS subscribers. It’d be handy if there was one.
I’ve never believed those subscriber numbers (200,000?), so there’s a poll below to give me a quick idea about the most active readers (it’s my first time trying the Yop Poll plugin, and if it doesn’t appear in your feed reader or inbox, come on over to the website).
Thanks for that.
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Update: 27 March 2013
Here are the results after a week or so.
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If FeedBurner does close, at least something good will come from it — the “Creative Design” feed title can make a sharp exit.
Related news elsewhere:
Why RSS matters, by Kevin Potts
The Google Reader shutdown is yet another nail in FeedBurner’s coffin, on TechCrunch
RSS can’t fill Google Reader void, by Michael Surtees, on Mashable
Apple’s RSS reader, on 512 Pixels
Why I love RSS and you do too, by Brent Simmons
Five best Google Reader alternatives, on Lifehacker
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25 appreciated comments on “A few thoughts about blog subscriptions”
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Just thought I’d comment and let you know that if you move email subscriptions to another email marketing software such as Mailchimp, then all of your previous email subscribers will need to re-opt in.
When I switched to Aweber, I lost 100′s of email subscribers as they didn’t opt-in again.
Hi David–
I’ve been reading your posts via RSS with Google Reader. Since GReader is closing, though, I’ve moved all my feeds to Feedly.
Thanks for the good stuff. Cheers.
I’ve been thinking the same thing about FeedBurner and trying to come up with good solutions to migrate my feed elsewhere. I’m not sure there’s any realistic way other than to ask people to resubscribe to a new feed.
The obvious downside is not everyone is going resubscribe, however that might not be as bad as it seems. Odds are most of the people who wouldn’t subscribe to a new feed, probably weren’t paying much attention anyway. No one wants to see their subscriber count go down, but it would better reflect who your real audience is.
Having said that, if you ask me to resubscribe I would without hesitation.
I’m still holding out and seeing if there is a better option, but my guess is at some point I’ll just ask my readers to resubscribe and hope for the best.
I am in desperate need to look for Google Reader’s replacement. I have been using it for years now to follow all of my blogs, including this one. Please, if you solve your problem let me know.
I wouldn’t worry too much. Feedburner should one day be integrated into Analytics (where it belongs). And if they decide to shut it down, they’re gonna put a redirect on it.
Btw, is it possible to view the results of the poll? And should I be able to submit multiple times?
I too have moved my feeds to Feedly. And I’d resubscribe if I had to, not a biggie. I agree with Steven above, that if people don’t resubscribe, they probably weren’t paying much attention anyway so perhaps it’s not a great loss. To you I mean — obviously it’s a great loss to them, they just don’t know it. :)
I think it’s for the best if people need to opt into a different service, Rahat. And like Steven and Catherine say, if someone doesn’t want to, or no longer uses the email address they subscribed with, it doesn’t make any difference if you keep that subscriber. Better to focus on people rather than numbers.
Michael, I’ll probably give Feedly a shot for the 100 or so blogs I have in Google Reader. I’ll leave it for a bit, though. I read that Feedly’s having some problems coping with the 500K+ new users. Jo, have you looked at that one?
Armin, I tried adding a link so you could “view results” but after I did, clicking it didn’t show anything. I think I’ve disabled multiple submissions, and I’ll let it run for a few days then update the thread with some figures.
RSS, always. It’s the most convenient way to discover and read blog posts :).
I didn’t even know Google Reader was shutting down. I’ll have to start working on migrating my blog subscribers to some other platform, and the blogs I subscribe to as well.
You might want to try FeedBlitz. It’s far more user friendly than FeedBurner – http://www.feedblitz.com/
Please don’t switch to email subscriptions as an alternative for RSS. Would you want to subscribe to all 100 or so feeds you currently have in Google Reader via email, and get hundreds of emails every day? I wouldn’t (and I won’t), as much as I enjoy following all the blogs I’m subscribed to. Email is not a viable alternative in my humble opinion.
If you’re running your blogs on WordPress, that already has an RSS feed built right in, typically at /feed. You can try it by switching off your Feedburner plugin – the feed still exists, it’s just served directly from WordPress.
You won’t have any of the fancy stats Feedburner offers, but you’ll give your readers the opportunity to subscribe via RSS (e.g. using Feedly).
Another RSS user here.
Ideally you have a specific location on your website (e.g. davidairey.com/feed) and that would then redirect (HTTP code 302 or 307) to your feed provider. Then if they do disappear, you can just point the redirect to another location (or turn it into a locally hosted resource).
I would resubscribe to a new feed if I had to.
(After voting my URL was http://www.davidairey.com/if-feedburner-closed/?yop_poll_answer=5&yop_poll_other_answer= I’m not sure if that’s correct or not. I’ve got JS disabled.)
I agree, Luke.
Thanks, Susan. I downloaded the FeedBurner migration PDF from the FeedBlitz website. Looks good, and I like how it handles RSS and email.
Robert, I’d not do that, for the reasons you mention. I’ll probably revert to davidairey.com/feed, then redirect it to FeedBlitz. It seems as if that’d mean asking people to resubscribe to the new feed address. I’ll read some more.
Thanks, Michael. Looks like the best plan to me.
Thanks David. I would re-subscribe to your new RSS feed anytime, of course.
P.S. Autocorrect turned “Feedly” into “Freely” in my above post.
No worries. I thought you meant Feedly. Updated.
I’m looking into AWeber, MailChimp, and FeedBlitz to handle the email subscriptions. I have about nine or ten thousand in total, so any move might end up costing me $100-$200 a month.
For the RSS side of things, FeedBlitz and RapidFeeds are two possibilities. I’m not ruling out a separation of email and RSS.
Campaign Monitor is another email alternative.
I use Google Reader all the time, I have the app on my phone so it’s great to be kept up to date with my favourite reads. However, saying that a few times I will log on to some of my follows and find new posts that haven’t populated in the app (on the comp this never happens)
But, Airey have no fear, I’m sure like myself, many of your followers also have a folder with all their favourite blogs for easy look up! That and like always we will adjust. Also, shout out to the new Google Keep (note app) feckin love it, so with the death of one, we gain another.
Although I use both email and RSS and know that I really should be referring to the RSS version more often, the reality is that I’m at my email most of the time and so I tend to notice the blog more often there.
I was also disappointed to learn about Google Reader closing, I found this was a reasonable free alternative with similar features.
http://theoldreader.com
For my RSS, I’ve been thinking about reverting to http://www.davidairey.com/feed/. I won’t know subscriber numbers, but I won’t pay to know either (which is what I’d likely do with a FeedBurner alternative). For email subscriptions I’ll probably sign up with Aweber.
Eoin, I just downloaded the browser extension for Feedly as a possible replacement for Google Reader. It’s good, but I uninstalled it and won’t bother unless there’s a web version, and unless you can create a Feedly account rather than logging in through Google. Despite its popularity, I’m not keen on the current set up. There’s no need for a reliance on app/extension downloads and updates to check feed subscriptions.
Chris, similarly, it seems like the only way to use The Old Reader is to sign in using Facebook or Google. I understand why free services collect all the information they can about their users, but it isn’t half off-putting.
I guess I’m old school. I like to personally visit sites every couple days to see if there are any new blog posts.
I’ve used netvibes as my RSS reader for almost 7 years and I’m quite happy with it.
I’ve only just started using Reader and now it’s closing! I must be so behind the times. I used to visit your site every day David, now I just use Reader and it let’s me know when you’ve updated.
However, I don’t know what to switch too now!
I’ve just updated the post with a screengrab of poll results. 68% of those who voted read via RSS.
That’s what I did, Adam, before I knew about RSS. It’s since saved me a ton of time.
Tony, I’m going to wait until just before the cut-off date. There’ll likely be more readers to choose from.
David… PLEEEEEEEASE let me know if I need to resubscribe. I think I will starve without your feed!!