I remember reading something regarding feeds and Google. Basically in terms of numbers, they just don't feel that anyone users it. Hence why it's unavailable on Chrome. It's a shame. Feeds can be really useful. Though I'll admit they're a niche market.
The implications this holds for the "open web" aren't pleasant, but I'm also scared about the idea that killing Feedburner would be the prelude to killing off my beloved Reader.<p>If Google really isn't getting anything out of maintaining feed infrastructure, someone must see Reader as dead weight at this point.
One of the feeds I to which I subscribe, preemptively moved off of Feeedburner a couple days ago.<p><a href="http://badassjs.com/post/32738175366/moving-off-feedburner-please-update-your-rss-reader" rel="nofollow">http://badassjs.com/post/32738175366/moving-off-feedburner-p...</a><p>The primary reason the author was using it was for the subscriber count. He created a quick script to wrap his feed to give him counts.<p><a href="https://gist.github.com/3816875" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/3816875</a>
Whilst I did use Feedburner, I jumped ship as soon as I heard they were shutting off the API. The only thing that I used Feedburner was for the subscriber count, but I've now switched the URLs around on my blog and added a little IP based tracker that more or less gives me the count.<p>I don't know if I just didn't 'get' Feedburner, but the only appeal for me was the subscriber count, was there any other key features that your own RSS feed cant be modified to do?
Are there any competitors in this market left? What are the key functionalities people are looking for/going to miss from feedburner? Would people PAY for these tools?
I admittedly don't use Feedburner daily but I completely understand why keeping Feedburner is a good move. It's holding up the open RSS standard and a lot of people rely on it as a service. If Google doesn't want it, they should either sell it. Which admittedly they'll never do or open source it.
I just checked <a href="http://skimfeed.com" rel="nofollow">http://skimfeed.com</a> and around 30% of the feeds are coming in through feedburner.<p>A few big names: Techcrunch, GigaOM, Cnet, Make, High Scalability, Ted, Tutsplus, Cracked, Metafilter, Discovery, Destructoid.
Ha ha ha. I remember a few years ago when everyone was in love in Feedburner, blissfully ignoring the fact that they were choosing to give their users a RSS (or Atom) URL which wasn't in their own domain name space which they control.
I can see why people think RSS is dead, however with services like ifttt RSS has become so much more useful.<p>Here are some of my more useful recipes involving RSS.<p>* The obvious. Getting the latest and greatest post from a small selection of high quality sites delivered to my email. (this amounts to about 4 emails a week)<p>* Github commits rss feed get texted to me.<p>* Github wiki page edits RSS feed are emailed to me.<p>I know I'm speaking to the choir but standard structured data is vastly useful.
Wow, they tried to jack everything about The Oatmeal's style, but did a poor job of it.<p>Love feedburner, but you have to wonder why they couldn't be themselves.