Warning: This is the time where Lynette completely flipped out, raged, and called Google on the <bleepin'> carpet for forgetting how to think like a consumer…
*EDIT:* http://feedburnerstatus.blogspot.com/2012/09/known-issue-subscriber-counts-and-stats.html has a very brief & cryptic update.
Feedburner is G.O.N.E. with little/no consumer warning or alternatives. If this is a glitch Google better jump on the email STAT and let users know what is going on, give us a chance to migrate out and then seriously look at the multiple failure points they need to fix in this process.
Feedburner is a service purchased a few years back by Google that allowed blog and podcast publishers to create a RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed so that people that wanted to get content automatically downloaded to them could do so easily. Content readers essentially could have content automatically delivered to them much in the same way a magazine subscription automatically shows up in your mailbox every month.
Oh, developers had warning that the API was getting shut down on October 20, 2012, but as of yet I have not seen one email from Feedburner (yes, I checked my spam folder) telling me as a consumer that the product was getting sunset. Also, today is NOT October 20th – it's September 21st.
Google purchased the Feedburner platform and did absolutely nothing to improve the service. Granted, I was paying for the service before (that was optional, I choose to pay because it got me extra features and stats I needed for my business and clients). Google let me have those features for free. Now I am left with no way to export my subscribers or lists. When a reader goes to download or view content on any of the 17 feeds I maintain, they will see nothing. The assumption here to the everyday person is that I am no longer publishing content online. Thanks Google. Now you made it look like I am out of business.
Problem 1 – Google thinks like engineers and developers and NOT so much like non-techie consumers. This actually helps me with what I do for a living (help companies work through the technical aspects of social media to get to the connecting and community) because Google thinks and talks like engineers. Great if you speek geek like me, stinks for people trying to run businesses and don't have time to dig deep in every little facet of developer forums.
Problem 2 – I am a user of Feedburner with 17 separate feeds (with even more in client-held accounts) with tens of thousands of subscribers. I should not have to hear that a service I use is being shut down – without warning or even the chance to export my data – from the industry trade sites. Now I have a handful of my own sites and a dozen clients with feeds that no longer work. Customers may assume we are all out of business now. #FAIL .
Fix this Google. It is so out of character to behave this way – sunsetting a product and not even helping your customers figure out where to go next or save their data. Remember that thing you used to say… do no evil? Yeah, let's talk about that again. You have my number.
Google+: Reshared 28 times
Google+: View post on Google+
Not surprised. In fact, expected. Google does this too often.
+Scott Wyden Kivowitz not this harsh though. Even Wave was given some time to wean off.
+Lynette Young They've been giving unofficial warnings for some time. Removing support, disabling features, etc.
It's still working for me.
My feedburner feeds are still there just as the feedburner site at http://feedburner.google.com/.
+Harald Walker Do your feeds have subscribers listed?
+Lynette Young relevant: http://imgur.com/QiAH6
They are moving feedburner into the Google ecosystem
Mine's still there. Granted, I just have one which I really don't care about since I don't make use of it the way you do. Wonder what's going on.
+Scott Wyden Kivowitz 0 since September 17.
+Harald Walker Yup – another sign that Feedburner feeds will be gone completely shortly.
Is the shutdown confirmed? Or is there still a chance these are 'mere' technical issues, and our feeds will be returning soon? Same here, in the past have used feed burner as an easy way for people to handle email subscription to blog/feed content.. . ^^
OMFG!!! This better be a mistake or glitch. Honestly.
knew this would happen. Google, fingers, pies!
Thanks for the update, Lynette. I agree — this happened with no warning and didn't help those who count on Google and Feedburner to do the right thing.
+Dan Glass thanks for the 411. I wonder when Google was going to get around telling the users about this? I haven't gotten any notification and I have been a Feedburner user since it was in beta.
My stats dropped to ZERO as of Sept 17th as well.
It was announced last year, that the Feedburner API will be shut down on October 20, 2012. The forum is talking about the lost subscribers. https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/feedburner-statistics
Haven't had time yet to look through the messages.
+Harald Walker I've seen that as well. My issue is that as a regular user (not one that hangs in the dev forums) there is no way to know about all this.
+Lynette Young If Google is killing Feedburner like that without warning I am upset just like you.
+Scott Wyden Kivowitz I thought the reduction in feature set was due to an intention to focus on specific features. I'm as shocked as +Lynette Young that Feedburner is going the way of Sparrow and Picnik.
At this point, I guess I'll have to move my 4 feeds. Work to do this weekend.
Thanks for the alert. I have multiple sites on FeedBurner, and if it's really gone, I'm going to have a lot of work to do today. Bad consumer service, Google.
A few podcasts i'm subscribed to use Feedburner and they seem to be working just fine also.
Doug Loves Movies, How To Do Everything, Jordan Jessy Go, Mike an Tom Eat Snacks, Penn's Sunday School
All use Feedburner, and all still work.
Seriously? My blog's subscriber count dropped from nearly 22,000 to 0 overnight, but I assumed it was just a glitch that they would work out. I am stilling seeing the feed from my most recent posts in my reader, but how long will that last? This is very frustrating to say the least. Thanks for the post, +Lynette Young.
Quick followup: Just checked and while I can still get to Feedburner and see all my feeds, they all show ZERO subscribers. A few days ago, they had between a few hundred and several thousand. If they're not taking it down, they've seriously broken something.
I can build feeds myself, and I can change the RSS links on the blogs – but the roughly one-third of subscribers who preferred Feedburner's email delivery option are apparently screwed, because I can't even get their addresses to notify them that they need to switch.
This might be relevant. On youtube's Analytics page it says "Unique viewer counts are not available for the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th. These statistics should be available after the 23rd. We apologize for this inconvenience."
Maybe the guy at Google who does all the counting went on vacation or something.
Um… so you missed the multiple emails encouraging you to move to Google Analytics? Works fine for my several sites.
+Peter Fitzgibbons I looked through all my emails & spam folders. I have not gotten one email regarding Feedburner from Google. The last email I have from Feedburner was the announcement that Google was purchasing them & all my feed metic stats.
Infuriating. But, if you haven't seen this, it might be of interest, a migration guide for switching from Feedburner to Feedblitz: http://www.feedblitz.com/the-feedburner-migration-guide/
+Marco Campana thanks for the link! I was actually planning on migrating over at the end of the month – but now my Feedburner has no data left it it but old stats – so nothing to migrate over. ;(
+Lynette Young +Marco Campana the downside to Feedblitz is even if you don't want to use the email subscription feature, you still have to pay. I will likely be using the built in RSS feed from WordPress and a Mailchimp RSS list.
Thanks +Scott Wyden Kivowitz, great suggestion. I'm also moving to the WordPress built in RSS feed. A few others have mentioned Mailchimp, very much worth looking at.
+Marco Campana Totally, especially since it's freemium plan is amazing. When I heard that Google started killing off features last week, I exported my email subscribers and imported them to Mailchimp, so my subscribers have been getting better emails for a week now.
Hang tight — Feedburner isn't gone.
+John Mueller Then a Google community manager or support person should say something to calm people down.
Muslims were not the aggressors, and secondly, that those of the enemy who were not actual combatants – children, women, monks, hermits, the aged and the infirm, the maimed, and the like – had nothing at all to fear from the Muslim soldiery. It was in light of this express Divine injunction that the great Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, charged his troops into Syria, ‘not to mutilate the dead, nor to slay old men, women, and children, nor to cut down fruit-trees, nor to kill cattle unless they were needed for food; and these humane precepts served like a code of laws of war during the career of Mohammadan conquest.’ (Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism, p. 185). Has not Islam thus, in prescribing war against those who break God’s law, who challenge His righteous authority, and who fill the world with violence and injustice, made every concession short of the impossible? Has any code of military ethics been so chivalrous, so humane and so tender towards the enemy? ‘The moral tone adopted by the Caliph Abu Bakr, in his instructions to the Syrian army, was’, says a modern Christian historian, ‘so unlike the principles of the Roman government, that it must have commanded profound attention from a subject people. Such a proclamation announced to Jews and Christians’ sentiments of justice and principles of toleration which neither Roman emperors nor orthodox bishops had ever adopted as the rule of their conduct’ (Finlay, Greece Under the Romans, pp. 367-368). (Daryabadi, The Glorious Qur’an, emphasis added)
+John Mueller since my subscribers have all been reset to zero from that perspective, Feedburner is gone.
I am a consumer user of Feedburner, and I did not hear about this at all. Not last year, and not now. I wouldn't have even known this had happened unless Lynette had said something (or I went back to check my stats). Now what am I supposed to do?
This is f*cked up, Google.
Son. Of. A. BITCH.
wow that is news one site i go to often uses, or used it..
My one feed stil seems to be active. Hmmmmm…..
It seems that the feeds are still active, but the stats are gone.
Well, there goes my cool email signature with rotating blog headlines!
Current stats are suddenly at 0. I still have past stats, though. Not sure what's going on here. We won't post a new episode until next week, so I won't know what's happens with the stats until then.
Export your email subscribers if you can: http://www.outnumbered3-1.com/2012/09/how-to-download-your-email-subscribers.html
I'll ping the Feedburner team — I'm currently on a train though :).
Please excuse my ignorance, but what is feedburner?
oh snap! that's SO not good.
+Kenny Krum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedburner & "Feedburner is a service purchased a few years back by Google that allowed blog and podcast publishers to create a RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed so that people that wanted to get content automatically downloaded to them could do so easily. Content readers essentially could have content automatically delivered to them much in the same way a magazine subscription automatically shows up in your mailbox every month."
They should at least respond if that's not the case. I had already decided to move to Feedblitz and did so this morning. It was fairly simple with the instructions I had, and I'm positive will offer better results than Feedburner's terrible service.
I chose Feedblitz because I like data-the WP feed doesn't offer stats and insights the way Feedburner did (though they were often WRONG) and Feedblitz does.
+Kenny Krum it allows readers to subscribe via RSS readers or get blog posts delivered to their inboxes. VITAL for blog and website owners.
Well, mine are gone too. Heading over to FeedBlitz to set up and start again.
hi Lynnette – I just stumbled on a note on the google blog that says they have been havinga known issue with feed burner subscriber counts and stats. It may not be waht you are seeing, but it might be.
Known Issue: Subscriber Counts and Stats
Friday, September 21, 2012 | 9:26 AM
Issue: We have been encountering difficulties with our stats production pipeline for data representing Sept 19th and 20th, 2012. We are currently working to resolve the issue.
http://feedburnerstatus.blogspot.com/2012/09/known-issue-subscriber-counts-and-stats.html
Also I just clicked your link up above for the rss feed, and it let me sign up for your RSS feed. Sounds like it might be a glitch.?
http://feedburnerstatus.blogspot.com/2012/09/known-issue-subscriber-counts-and-stats.html has a brief & cryptic update… too bad it's been going on for DAYS.
Good.
Not. Dead. Yet.
Guys, +John Mueller posted above he is reaching out. He works for Google. Also +Dan Glass posted a screenshot that says they moved stuff to Google, you should look at it before posting more comments.
They JUST posted this status to Feedburner. The problem has been going on since September 17th. It’s not just the stats that are gone – a lot of people are saying they are MISSING their email lists from inside Feedburner. Now they have no way of exporting and migrating. Feeds still work for most people right now.
The biggest issue is that as a user of the system I was given NO notification they would be sunsetting this platform. Developers knew, but only if you were in the forums.
You can still export your lists of email users. Just choose to view stats from a few days ago, and you’ll be able to go to and view your list, and export to .csv.
Also, from what i hear this is just a feedburner glitch, not the service shutting down… yet.
+Elijah Lynn that screenshot +Dan Glass put up I had gotten a few years back – it was when you used to have a separate Feedburner login. That was to consolidate over to using a Google login to access Feedburner. There is NO Google-issued migration path to exit Feedburner.
I hate to say this but for YEARS since the start of internet; all these FREEBIE web sites from EON ago. They pulled the plug on users after you spent days, months or years to build sites on them. Let me see Prodigy.com, Beseen.com, Geocities.com, AOL members.aol.com. AOL even pulled the plug on PAID MEMBER web sites few years ago, AOL members.aol.com. Now they have About Me profile for all members PAID or not.. Yahoo pulled the plug on social network, Yahoo! 360° and Yahoo Buzz. Microsoft used to have Groups for users, then they pulled the plug and obliterated all the groups. Then Microsoft also pulled the plug on OFFICELIVE.com. All your web sites on Officelive are all gone.They dont even archive the web sites for you, they gave users instruction to save all your files on the old site (pictures, asx and html files). Not many users are tech savvy or it was too cumbersome, so many users left. Microsoft now have OFFICE365.com which I used but guess what. They didn't archive any of my emails (even with my own domain name that I paid for).
It's not Google pulling the service I'm mad about – it's the lack of communication. I've been a Feedburner user (paid for it back in the day) from when they were pre-beta.
Screw Google. I've exported my email subscriber stats and just sent out an email telling them how to use WordPress's built-in /feed/ page to pull the blogs into Outlook or whatever application they choose. And redirected all the "subscribe" links on our blogs to the internal page. It won't get me the kind of stats Feedburner provided, but frankly, that's not an issue for me.
I've said elsewhere, I'm exporting Google Reader JSON and OPML feeds because well, I don't trust this company. The uncertainty becoming unpalatable.
OMG. It's the end of the world. Don't panic…don't panic…don't panic…don't panic…Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!!!
Hmmm… I realized now that I have Google Feedburner on my Blogs and web site..
Thank you, I have to check them and take appropriate action now… Arrrggg!!!
look like treatfire
Google had better start thinking like its users…and soon! As a Google supporter the fact that Google suddenly drops a service without announcement of a replacement makes me hesitate how many more apples I want to put into the G cart. Think like your users and then some, treat your users with respect and you will be the leader in the online wars with your competitors. And, surprise, no engineering degree required.
Just checked. All my subscribers are gone. Listed at zero, across the board.
+Christine Cavalier Remain calm. It might just be temporary.
+Steve Garfield ok I'll remain calm… I just have to dig into my site even more now to change stuff. I'm just a little tired, lately, with all the design I've been struggling with and the lack of writing because of it. If I have to put one of those annoying PLEASE SUBSCRIBE pop ups on my pages just to scrounge some subscribers I'll feel defeated. I didn't have a TON of subscribers but I had my people!
All – sorry I wasn't able to respond earlier, but I was chasing this down internally. I can confirm that Feedburner isn't gone; what's happening is related to a bug. Eng is aware and working on a fix; ETA is a couple days.
Thanks +Michael Hermeston
+Michael Hermeston The more important question is: Is it going to be gone? With the demise of the Feedburner API next month, can we expect Feedburner itself to follow? I've been unable to find anything but speculation on that account.
If it's not one thing it's another. I thought at least my subscribers and feeds were safe.
Lynette, although my subscriber list has disappeared from the Analyze>Feed Stats>Subscriber tab, I was able to download a CSV file for most, if not all, of my subscribers from Publicise>Subscription Management>View Subscriber Details at the bottom of the page. You might be able to do the same.
The speculation on the demise of Feedburner is ominous and, if it does happen, shame on Google for not being more upfront with users. I am certainly exploring other options.
No they are not closing Feedburner. It is just portion of their APIs.
What does the API going away mean? and I can't get it to burn my feeds much less show stats for them.
The API is used by developers making apps and other products based on Feedburner. When it's no longer available, there will be no more such products (from anyone but Google, anyway). Not of much significance to the rest of us – but past experience suggests it could be a step toward scrapping Feedburner entirely. Google's business model has changed, and providing free stuff for other developers to play … or free services they can't "monetize" – no longer seems to be part of it.
I just checked my feedburner a few mins ago. All was fine and then I refreshed and all my stats are gone!
damn damn damn , lost all my list 🙁
Look under Publicize>e-mail subscription > subscriber management. Bet all
your subscriber detil are still there and your feed updates are still going
out. It's just a bug in the stats.
+Brenda Gael Smith i hope you're right…
+Pat Kight Thanks. Why is this crap so difficult.
I am a podcaster using feedburner for my feed. My stats all dropped to zero a few days back however the podcast is still updating in itunes so there's clearly something going on. This will be a nightmare to sort out with itunes etc if you have to change your podcast feed address. There will be a lot of duplicate podcasts out there for a while. Anyone know any other RSS feed providers with a similar (but more reliable) service?
+James McKay nothing is guarantied to be reliable forever, I've seen many similar sites shut down.
Yea I know Jonathan. I'm just venting a bit. I've only just got all my rss stuff sorted out and now it looks like il have to start again. I know my feed is still working but the stats are alway nice to see if anyone is really listening. I'm sure google will have some master plan, be it with feedburner or a new similar service
FYI – Monday morning here. My Feedburner is still zero'd out and I can't access the email subscribers in another account I maintain to export. Still no emails to any of my accounts telling me there is anything wrong. As a consumer, I would expect a service outage of 7 full days would at least warrant an email.
or a press release.
+Steph from fangswandsandfairydust as a 'regular user' I'm not really cruising PR Wire for press releases for products I use. Email is the most direct and opt-in way to reach someone…. but I agree, there has been no official communications expect for a cruddy status update on the abandoned Feedburner forums.
I wish I could find a reasonable way to fill in my knowledge gaps so I would know what to do. Or find someone to do this kind of "admin" stuff. I am small potatoes but work as a blogging professional.
The whole thing is frustrating. I have looked around and the only free alternative seems to be feedcat. I am going to look at mailchimp. But even if I get my feed back I lost all the non email subs, right?
+Steph from fangswandsandfairydust If you are looking for someone to do "admin" stuff for you… check out my site! http://www.bloggershelpdesk.com
Look under the Publicize tab (see my comment above), you can download your subscriber details from there. Mailchimp offers a RSS to email service although it only is updated once a day in the early US morn. Feedblitz offers a paid service but when I used it last, it required subscribers to have a Feedblitz account.
+Brenda Gael Smith My subscription management under Publicize tab says "0" and there's no option to download a subscriber list.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/24/feedburner-experiencing-stat-issues-api-to-shut-down/
+Steve Garfield dang man. Now I really need an alternative!
Stats are back up for Feedburner, but I still wonder if they are going away? I imported all of my email contacts to mailchimp.
Yay the stats are back! Thanks for the news +Amberr Meadows!
My pleasure, +Quaisha A. Thornton . Now I just need to get my feeds moved.
This could be useful for many people: http://wpmu.org/5-best-feedburner-alternatives-for-your-wordpress-blog/ via +Sarah Gooding
+Scott Wyden Kivowitz that is really helpful. Thank you for sharing!
+Amberr Meadows i was going to move my feeds to mailchimp but now that +Scott Wyden Kivowitz shared a list with other alternatives, I'm going to check that out first.
I found this article on some alternatives to Feedburner also. I forgot to post it when I found it a couple of days ago. http://knolzone.com/7-best-free-alternatives-to-feedburner-and-why-you-should-be-using-them/