Help Fix the Feedburner Subscriber Count Problem
If you are a blogger or an avid reader of blogs, you are probably well aware of the ongoing problems with the RSS subscription service, Feedburner.
While Feedburner has always had its problems, over the past few months the variations in Feedburner subscriber stats have been so erratic, they can no longer be trusted. I have seen subscriber counts fluctuate 50-70% on any given day. Many other bloggers have also reported on the same issues with huge Feedburner fluctuations.
This is a problem for a number of reasons. Firstly, content publishers can no longer accurately track the growth of their blogs. Additionally, the Feedburner chicklet (counter) proudly displayed on many blogs has now become irrelevant as a form of social proof.
The ongoing issues with Feedburner are becoming so bad that some are beginning to wonder if Feedburner itself is becoming irrelevant. It is certainly strange that Google would fork out approximately $100 million dollars just 3 years ago, only to let the service deteriorate like it has.
What is Google doing about it?
Perhaps Google are actually doing their best to sort out the ongoing issues with Feedburner once and for all. If this is the case however, they have done a pretty rotten job of communicating it to their user base. Neither the Feedburner Twitter account nor status blog are frequently updated with useful information.
The Feedburner team at Google doesn’t seem to realize that frequent and transparent communication is actually an important part of providing a service.
Can we make Google take Feedburner seriously?
I realise it is highly unlikely to ‘make’ Google do anything. However, I see no harm in trying.
This post is just my humble attempt to ‘rally the troops’ if you will.
If you are fed up with the poor service provided by Feedburner and their general lack of communication, please leave a comment below.
If we get enough comments, who knows, that might be enough for Google to fix Feedburner once and for all.
Photo by Chris Campbell