All of my RSS feeds[wiki], including all the podcasts that I am involved with producing, are routed through FeedBurner. Argue what you will about the intelligence of this, but there are so many qualities about doing this that makes it a no-brainer. You put one feed into it and it can make it readable by nearly anything out there that can digest XML. As Dave cleverly puts it, it’s the special sauce that spruces up your RSS feed.
So Google is buying FeedBurner for a cool $100 million. What does that mean for us podcasters?
Both of the podcasts that I currently produce have their subscriptions pushed through FeedBurner. Based on that idea alone, I take comfort in the fact that this service will continue for a longer time and not having to fear for the lifespan of the operation. Like it or not, Google will be around for a while, so that means that they’ll be “burning” my feeds as well.
If FeedBurner went out of business, a huge portion of podcasters would be scrambling to recover, not forgetting the numerous bloggers out there who use the service as well. Sure, the technical fix on our end would be easy, but not all of your listeners pay attention to these tidbits of news. If the feed stops updating, a subscriber might shrug their shoulders and just assume that the podcast doesn’t exist anymore, not even bothering to see what happened. Audiences can be rebuilt, but on a worldwide platform, that’s tough. All you can hope for is that the community built around your podcast is strong enough to spread the news of your continued, just that we’re over here now.
This is a total catch, but it’s the reality of the situation. That being said, it’s comforting to know that this service is going to continue. What Google will do with it remains to be seen, and some are already predicting the future, based on the trends that “the Goog” has done with other ventures.
The one weakness that some people have said they suffer from is in number and variety of ads to run. That won’t be a problem any more if Google scoops them up, they’ll have an army of sales people and the AdSense machine behind them.
User Control Over Data
The other issue that some people have raised is that FeedBurner has too much control over their users’ feeds. That concern is going to be taken much more seriously if they become a part of the Goog. Data mining is not inherently bad, and Google’s going to get a whole new frontier for it opening up if they buy FeedBurner. What’s the solution to privacy concerns? In the long run, people are going to come to understand our digital assets, including our clickstreams and other data, as a resource that we graciously let these vendors chew on for as long as we are happy with them. Just like interest I draw on my bank account is mine to take out of that bank along with my deposit at any time – so too will we someday have the option of nearly one-click export and erase OUR data from any given vendor. Big vendors will understand this or they will lose. [marshall kirkpatrick]
There’s too much that we know and don’t know about the future to come for FeedBurner. And if we really want to speak of track records, remember that Google picked up Blogger in 2003 and took a long time to really do anything notable with it, especially in terms of the changes in functionality and physical relocation early this year. Changes to FeedBurner are bound to happen, and being that Google is somewhat wise to the way they develop things, this could be a positive outcome. It remains to be seen.