

Let’s Say FeedBurner Shuts Down… - Idered
http://css-tricks.com/lets-say-feedburner-shuts-down

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jmilkbal
They barely care about FeedBurner as it is. They've discontinued all of the
advertising intergration, not updated the blog in any amount of time nor do
you really get that much of the product itself. There's some pretty basic
Google Analytics connection, but the main data we get out of it is download
numbers for our podcast (<http://76streetpod.com>) and podcast network
(<http://76streetnetwork.com>). It seems like every couple weeks the
statistics stop for unexplained reasons only to have the Google group light up
with nary an explanation. Along with mostly useless developer documentation
for how the product outputs what it does or how it changes entries in a feed,
FeedBurner is a useless hunk of crap that is almost certain to shutdown. An
recent gripe is that when you use it as a feed proxy it doesn't pass along
subscriber numbers like any other good feed parser, so a FeedBurner feed of a
FeedBurner feed doesn't pass long info to the original FeedBurner feed or feed
(but will pass along downloads, though it's only because FeedBurner is just a
glorified Location header then.) I originally only went with FeedBurner over
an open solution for expediency, but I've never liked giving Google more
information on our users or giving up my control of our feeds to a product
that has been limping along for years. It wouldn't take much effort to
replicate FeedBurner. Maybe it's time I hunker down and do it. I've been
planning for a FeedBurner switch since the beginning by using its "branded"
feed feature and using a subdomain of ours for feed hosting. I hope everyone
else has been wise enough to do so, as well, though looking at our network
membership feeds, I know they haven't.

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eli
When they removed the ability to serve ads -- presumably the whole reason the
service exists -- I knew its days were numbered. But honestly, I had assumed
there would be tons (years) of notice before they unplugged anything. Now I'm
not so sure about that.

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kefs
An alternative.. <http://uri.lv/>

w/ migration from feedburner.. <http://uri.lv/feeds/migrate>

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eli
If you're worried about FeedBurner going away, I would think you'd be worried
about this free service going away one day too.

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maximevalette
We're adding a premium tier in a few days, with some nice premium features.

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geerlingguy
If you're using FeedBurner and haven't already, consider enabling the MyBrand
service. It's free, and gives you full control of the feed URL. I wrote
instructions for doing so here: [http://www.midwesternmac.com/blogs/jeff-
geerling/using-feedb...](http://www.midwesternmac.com/blogs/jeff-
geerling/using-feedburner-sake-control)

[Edit: link]

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acdha
There's a bigger problem: FeedBurner wraps URLs in the google feedproxy
redirector. If they shut that down, a ton of old shared links will break.

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opminion
Like closing down a URL shortener.

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ersii
Indeed and there's a lot of usage of URL Shorteners as well.

That's why it's so important to save where they head to and/or not use a
shortener. Some URL shorteners even change their short codes every now and
then (ie they lead to new places).

The ArchiveTeam have a URLTeam that's dedicated to unshortening URL shorteners
and releases their data sets every now and then. Feel free to check out
<http://urlte.am/> <http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=URLTeam> and/or
stop by #urlteam on EFNet.

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snoonan
The one wrinkle I can see is that a lot of podcasts (including my own) use
Feedburner. While shutting down Reader directly affects the people who chose
to use it, shutting down Feedburner would disrupt a millions of innocent
users. The end user just sees a great podcast go offline and subsequent
firestorm of blaming Google. They'd be shutting down the customers of their
customers, which seems a little more evil.

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derefr
There's an underlying problem to that: RSS has no concept of a signal for
"feed discontinued at this URL; use other located at <new URL>". At its
simplest, this would just require RSS readers to understand 301 redirects and
actually change their stored URL for the feed in response.

(Well, that, and to not use feed URLs as primary keys, which I know some RSS
clients are guilty of. ;)

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StavrosK
301, you mean, but I'd be surprised if RSS readers don't honor 301s. The RSS
feed is served over HTTP, so it's not the job of the feed to specify its
location. That's what "Moved permanently" is for.

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acdha
This is exactly what almost every reader on the planet does, thanks to
discussion and evangelism 5+ years ago

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derefr
Do they actually change what URL they have stored in their feed database,
though? Or do they just follow the redirect each and every time they access
the feed? It matters when the old server is eventually taken down. (Keeping in
mind that while Cool URLs Don't Change, most servers and domains are managed
by Uncool people.)

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jstalin
This was my first thought as well when they announced the death of Reader. I
don't see why they'd keep feedburner running. If they're going to kill it,
they should just announce it now, rather than prolonging the pain.

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eli
Yup, last week I made sure all my sites were broadcasting a direct RSS URL.
One would hope they would at least give plenty of warning before actually
pulling the plug, but who knows.

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pjbrunet
Some thoughts:

1\. I haven't looked but I bet there's already a WordPress plugin that counts
feed download stats. Or just use tracking links (redirect with a counter) in
your feed--lots of services (Budurl) do that if you're not a coder.

2\. It's disgusting that Feedburner feeds do not anywhere reveal the original
URL of the source material. I'm glad this is getting attention finally.

3\. As a user, I don't want the middleman Feedburner between me and the source
material. 80% of the time you can just add /feed/ to the blog's URL and
WordPress will have the original feed there for you. Even if it's not
advertised--it's still there :-)

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MichaelApproved
I doubt Feedburner will _ever_ be shut down (by Google at least). The backlash
that Google will suffer can not be worth the savings they will receive by
shutting it down. It will remain a tax on a bad acquisition decision and it'll
continue on with the bare minimum of maintenance.

Maybe Google will "sell" the service to a lesser known company who will let
the service die after a while. They could also spin it off with a seed fund of
its own and allow it to die if it can't be profitable. This method might allow
Google to get away with killing the service and take so much of the blame.

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ersii
If there's a lesson I've learned with Google: They don't sell their
acquisitions.

They've probably integrated too much stuff into what they originally acquired.

Authentication, advertising platform, support (ha) flows and what not.

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MichaelApproved
Good point. I was more cynical but maybe they could allow the acquiring
company to integrate account data into their service rather than a transfer of
software.

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Concours
I believe Feedburner will ultimately shut down, the question isn't really IF
it'll shut down BUT WHEN it'll shut down. We have a simple to use Feed
Fetching API at <https://www.feedsapi.org> with our extended documentation (in
work) at [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vCL_W9XGnsa-
EN8oAhNl8tOq...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vCL_W9XGnsa-
EN8oAhNl8tOqEtP4u6UM5OiVi5D0pbs/edit?usp=sharing) , it’s not a clone of the
Google Reader API, but it’s really good for what it’s supposed to do.

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dudus
Google Reader was too much integrated into the Google brand and also had a
very easy and clear migration path to other services. You like it or not it's
expandable.

Feedburner on the other hand would be harder to migrate. They might do the
same as they did to SketchUp and just sell the service to someone that is
interested in making a business out of it.

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keesj
Wouldn't it make more sense for Google to first shut down FeedBurner and then
Google Reader?

That way Google could ensure all FeedBurner subscriptions in Reader would be
replaced A) with the location of the new feed provided by the site owner, or
B) in case of no action from the site owner fall back to the original feed as
known by FeedBurner.

When they've done that, they can shutdown Google Reader and all the new RSS
readers out there that let you import your Google Reader feeds would have the
new updated non-FeedBurner feeds.

I guess having a 301 redirect option in FeedBurner and advising other RSS
readers to implement would work as well, but it seems more error prone than
Google solving as much of this problem as possible themselves. With Google
Reader they are/were in the ideal place to do so. I realize it requires some
development costs, but it would be a nice gesture to their user base.

Of course this is all hypothetical. We don't know what Google's plans are for
FeedBurner. Perhaps the fact they shutdown Google Reader is an indication
FeedBurner is here to stay for the time being as otherwise they would have
taken the above approach.

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froo
> Wouldn't it make more sense for Google to first shut down FeedBurner and
> then Google Reader?

Not particularly. As it stands now, FeedBurner feels more like a utility
whereas Reader is a service.

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est
It's not only Feedburner what will be shut down, blogger will shutdown because
G+ team already working on the alternative

Introducing their own blogging platform:

<http://gplusproject.appspot.com/new-apps-iphone-android>

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felixthehat
I'm not a feedburner user myself, but it looks like a lot of people use it
just for stats - I wonder could google roll it into google analytics as an
extra stream?

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alenart
Google Alerts + email filters = makeshift RSS reader. Now if Google cans
Alerts I'll throw down.

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nrlucas
feedburner shuts down

