Google park the self-driving car and fix FeedBurner

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I can appreciate why Google is working on all kinds of new technologies like the self-driving car, but I think it’s time to fix some of the things it’s been ignoring for a long time. The big one for Web publishers is FeedBurner.

Google does offer quite a few services to assist Web publishers — Analytics, Webmaster Tools, and even search. As a publisher, I thank Google for these tools. However, that doesn’t give them a pass on ignoring one of the most important tools we have.

Google bought FeedBurner in 2007 and everyone had high hopes for the service, but nothing has come of it.

The problem is that there are no real alternatives 1 to FeedBurner and Google has made it clear they don’t really care about adding features or even making FeedBurner work properly. Often times FeedBurner stats are empty because it didn’t track anything that day.

That’s not acceptable. You can’t offer tools for publishers and just let them languish. Google offered real-time stats in FeedBurner for a short time, but then turned them off with no explanation.

If Google has no interest in FeedBurner, they should sell it to someone who does. At least give the millions of publishers that want to use the service 2 the opportunity to get the most out of it.

What Google is doing with FeedBurner is a disservice to the publishing community.

  1. Yes, I am aware of FeedBlitz, but I don’t want to go through the hassle of changing all of my subscribers just because Google wants to ignore FeedBurner. ↩

  2. I would even pay a monthly fee for an improved FeedBurner. ↩



  • phollows

    I kow you’re aware of us; we have an easy guide to help people switch. Go on, try it :)

    http://www.feedblitz.com/the-feedburner-migration-guide/

  • lucascott

    I have to agree with the core of Jim’s argument. Starting something or buying something and then not fixing the bugs is totally lame. If you aren’t going to bother with at least fixing issues why do any of it at all.

  • Mayson

    I’m really not sure you want to go there: have you noticed what they did in their redesigns of Reader and Gmail?

  • Sam

    I never liked the basic premise of feedburner, that you have to link to them. If you want statistics you want it non-intrusive transparent so that it tracks the data not by sitting in between but by monitoring it. A service like that can be easily swapped for another and the links stay the same.