
Show HN: Built a FeedBurner replacement in a week - ComputerGuru
http://feedsnap.com/?utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Introducing+FeedSnap
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MatthewPhillips
Advice: don't brag about how little time it took you to create this, it makes
it sound like you aren't taking it seriously. This looks like a legitimately
good product. There is a (rather high) chance that FeedBurner goes away, and
if that happens you sit in a nice position to take some of the business, so
I'd start presenting this is a real service.

~~~
joelgascoigne
I tend to agree with this. I'm genuinely on the lookout for a service to
replace Feedburner.

Buffer is often called "just a cron job" and I can assure you much of the work
is in scaling up "just a crob job" to hundreds of thousands of users
(alongside all the other aspects of the product). So I know first hand that
"building a replacement" is not the hard part of the task. I certainly want to
trust that you guys can scale this up and be a reliable host of my feed.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Our current FeedBurner feed has over 600,000 subscribers (don't ask) most days
of the week. We know the difficulties of hosting constantly-updating info
that's requested once a minute by hundreds of thousands of users:
<http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/neosmart>

~~~
joelgascoigne
Awesome. Thanks for the insight :) I'm definitely keeping an eye on you guys,
all the best!

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ComputerGuru
I was torn as to whether to link to the site or the blog post introducing it.
Here's the blog post with more info: [http://neosmart.net/blog/2013/worried-
google-will-kill-your-...](http://neosmart.net/blog/2013/worried-google-will-
kill-your-feedburner-introducing-feedsnap/)

The site is still in the early stages, more features are coming in very soon.
Some geeky info: powered by ASP.NET MVC, S3, RDS, EC2, CloudFront and soon,
Redis for real-time analytics (currently a custom in-memory data structure).
Backend was implemented in around a week of non-stop work.

We've been using FeedBurner since 2004, and were huge fans of one of the
coolest startups to come from our hometown, Chicago. We also know what it
means to have hundreds of thousands of subscribers, our own feed has over
600,000 subscribers constantly making requests for content (don't ask). As the
blogpost explains, we would love to take this further and delve into the
intricate world of feed indexing but want to take the time to gauge demand and
get a feel for the bigger picture. Feedback is most welcome.

Sample "prettified" feeds for those so inclined, ranging from original feeds
that provide full content, brief summary, to titles only:
<http://feeds.feedsnap.com/neosmart> <http://feeds.feedsnap.com/bbcnews>
<http://feeds.feedsnap.com/hackernews>

~~~
law
> FeedSnap's goal is simple: to provide a reliable, capable, and actively
> maintained FeedBurner replacement for your beloved RSS feed.

In keeping with that goal, is there any chance that you will open source the
work you've done under a GPLv3 license? Perhaps the largest problem is that
_every_ service claims to be "reliable, capable, and actively maintained"
until it isn't.

~~~
ComputerGuru
We'd definitely release the source if we were to scuttle it. But not GPL
(especially not v3), more like MIT or BSD :)

~~~
law
Would you mind expanding upon why you presumably prefer GPLv2 over v3?
Additionally, if you prefer the MIT/BSD licensing model, why not choose Apache
v2?

~~~
ComputerGuru
Apache is fine, too (though there aren't any patents involved so it has no
real advantage). Apache v2, BSD, MIT, are all in the same open spirit - Apache
is just more explicit about what it gives away.

It's important to understand that when FSF talks about "freedom" they
explicitly mean keeping the _users_ free - not the developers. As a developer,
I'm personally biased towards being free _to other developers_ , and I think
GPL (v2 and esp. v3) are very much pro-user at the cost of being anti-
developer.

~~~
law
> It's important to understand that when FSF talks about "freedom" they
> explicitly mean keeping the users free - not the developers. As a developer,
> I'm personally biased towards being free to other developers, and I think
> GPL (v2 and esp. v3) are very much pro-user at the cost of being anti-
> developer.

I don't think that's what the FSF means when they talk about freedom. Freedom
is about keeping everyone free--developers and users alike. Copyleft licenses
ensure that all derivative works be subject to the same licensing terms as the
original work. It's a way to protect the self-perpetuating nature of free
software that more permissive licenses fail to achieve.

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booruguru
Do you offer domain mapping? I can't trust that you'll be around six months
from now, so I don't want to send all of my readers to an address based on
your domain name.

~~~
ComputerGuru
1) Don't send your readers to our address, use a 302 redirect from your old
feed unless the useragent is FeedSnap (plugins for popular platforms to do
this automagically coming this way soon)

2) Yes, it's in the works.

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acangiano
Free during the beta. How much afterwards?

~~~
ComputerGuru
We haven't determined that yet. Probably a free tier then more as you go up.
We're planning on figuring that out based off of the costs-per-subscriber
incurred over the next few months. I completely understand that this is less
than ideal from a perspective customer's point of view, and I only wish we had
a more concrete price point at this time.

~~~
acangiano
The problem with that is that it makes me hesitant to sign up at this point.
Just feedback from a prospective user.

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ceejayoz
A sample feed would be really nice (particularly for the "prettier feeds"
point). The "because rss isn't dead yet" at the footer looked like it'd be
one, but it isn't.

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mcenedella
C'mon! The graphics on the front page alone took longer than week, properly
counting thinking time and designer time.

~~~
adventured
You're probably joking... because his graphics are all stock and that layout
could be thrown together in hours even with pondering time included.

eg his rocket ship:

[http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/file404/file4041209/file40...](http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/file404/file4041209/file404120900052/15309251-rocket-
icon.jpg)

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bbakkd
WordPress itself makes a great platform for replacing feedburner:
[http://autoblogged.com/6602/autoblogged/feedburner-
alternati...](http://autoblogged.com/6602/autoblogged/feedburner-alternative/)

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adventured
The easy part of replacing Feedburner, is building a replacement.

The hard part, is keeping a good replacement open for the next decade with
near 100% uptime.

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zimpenfish
Does it bastard-cruft up the URLs like feedburner?

~~~
ComputerGuru
Only if you ask it to (no other way 100% reliable method of tracking
clickthroughs, though we are working on a JS alternative).

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scott_meade
"Don't wait for Google to kill your feed. " - Are you saying Google is
shutting down FeedBurner?

~~~
weston
With Google shutting down Reader, it wouldn't be that far off to say
Feedburner could be next: [http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/13/the-google-reader-
shutdown-...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/13/the-google-reader-shutdown-is-
yet-another-nail-in-feedburners-coffin/)

~~~
wmeredith
Feedburner has been broken, receiving no updates, for years now. The end is
surely nigh.

