How I Beat TechCrunch for the Second Time
Blogging January 22nd, 2009
First time I beat TechCrunch was in July 2006:
…their Feedburner subscription base grew almost 100% overnight. But it pales in comparison to my 2.5million % growth rate … yes, I went from 200 or so to 51k. Jeff Clavier did quite well, too, at 56k, but hey Jeff, I am catching up!
Too bad it was due to a Netvibes glitch, and once they fixed it, my readership fell back to – well, normal levels.
Today I am winning again: TechCrunch has 0 –yes zero – subscribers, while I have 1141. ![]()
This time the culprit is Feedburner, which chucked the subscriber stats to zero for many blogs, including TechCrunch, while I lucked out, and only “lost” about half my subscribers. Over @ CloudAve we were less lucky, the migration to Google’s new setup cost about 85% of our subscriber base, but that still beats zero…
Yet it’s a Pyrrhic victory, which I hope won’t last – Feedburner (Google) needs to pull their act together.
Tags: blog feeds, blog stats, Blogging, feedburner, Google, rss, techcrunch
Moved: Feedburner Migration With Glitches
Blogging January 20th, 2009
Feedburner started as a cool new blog feed management/reporting service a few years ago, and quickly became a de facto standard. A quick scan of my Feed Reader shows hardly anything but Feedburner. Since Google acquired the company almost two years ago, we haven’t seen a lot of new services – but that does not change the almost monopoly status. Feedburner rules the market, and I’m no exception.
A few months ago Google started to migrate accounts – first only those who wanted to run Adsense in their feeds. Since I don’t care for advertising, I did not bother first, but knew the day would come: the final deadline is February 28th, but anyone can move to the new servers on their own schedule.
Seeing all the negative buzz on Twitter I was planning to wait – but then I “lost” 70% of my subscribers even with the old setup, so I figured I might as well take the plunge. And here it is now: a shiny, brand new (old) feed @ http://feeds2.feedburner.com/zoli.
Google says (FAQ) the stats will “recover” in about a week. Funny thing is, the one service entirely missing from the reports is Google’s very own Reader. I certainly hope this “loss” is only in the stats, and readers are receiving our feed without interruption. If you are, you don’t have to do anything, the old Feedburner URL will continue to be redirected, says Google. Then again, if you’re cautious (like I am), or perhaps are not following our feed yet, you might as well grab the new feed here.
Either way, thanks for reading my Blog.
Tags: atom, Blogging, bloog feed, feed reader, feedburner, Google, rss
FeedBurner Loses Half Your Subscribers
Blogging, SaaS August 15th, 2008
Check your FeedBurner stats, but don’t worry too much: no, there was no mass exodus, you did not lose more than half your subscribers overnight.
There’s a simple explanation: FeedBurner is missing Google FeedFetcher stats- that’s the number of users who read your blog in Google Reader. Last time I reported the same, Google Reader represented about 40% of my readership- apparently now it’s about 60%.
Ironically it happens on the day when FeedBurner is in the news for launching AdSense for feeds.
Tags: adsense, feedburner, Google, google feedfetcher, google reader, outage
FeedBurner Missing Google Feedfetcher Again
Blogging November 9th, 2007
Is this becoming a weekly ritual? Check your FeedBurner subscriber count: it’s likely down by roughly 40%.
As usual, don’t panic, it simply means that the Google Feedfetcher data (which includes the popular Google Reader) is missing again. In a few hours the good folks at FeedBurner / Google wake up and we’ll have another blog post telling us to wait a day, and everything be back to normal tomorrow – until next time.
Tip to FeedBurner: if this is becoming a routine, don’t bother writing new blog posts. Just remove any reference to specific dates and make it a sticky post.
Tags: Blogging, feed count, feedburner, Google
FeedBurner is Out of Flame Today
Blogging November 4th, 2007
If your see your FeedBurner subscriber count cut in half today, don’t panic, it does not means your readers “fired” you. It simply means that Google’s Feedfetcher is not reported in the total count today. Clearly a glitch – not as fun as this other one, when I picked up 50K bonus readers, but hey, I’m sure it will be fixed soon -perhaps by the time you wake up and finish coffee.
.
Update: Confirmed: Google Feedfetcher had a hangover.. it’s clearing up now.
Tags: Blogging, feed count, feedburner, Google
Zoli Erdos