Why I ♥ FeedBurner

I'll tell you up front, it's not just because they chose us for last Friday's Publisher Buzz. (But they did.) Really, it's just because they're so damn cool in every way possible. FeedBurner is a free, web-based RSS service. From a webmaster's perspective, it allows you to simplify the distribution of your site's feed and track stats regarding the number of readers that subscribe to your site. For a fee you can also get more extensive stat tracking. From a reader's perspective, using a FeedBurner feed essentially ensures compatibility with whatever feedreader you use, whether it is web-based, a part of your browser, or a standalone program. A few weeks ago I subtly noted in this post that we had added a FeedBurner feed as an RSS option. At the time, this was my first experience with the service. It seemed useful, but it didn't stand out. However, after using it for a few weeks I'm very impressed with how easy it has made managing our feed and analyzing its usage. One big help in this regard was the plugin now known as FeedSmith. At first I wasn't looking forward to setting up a feed for each flavor of RSS we offered here at Texxors. But this plugin automatically detects and redirects any feeds available on your Wordpress site. It was very smart of FeedBurner to take over management (and essentially advertisement) of this plugin, since it makes the Feedburner service and Wordpress work much better together. Which leads me to the other reason I dig FeedBurner - they seem like smart people who can make good business decisions while, at the same time, providing a cool service and maintaining a good sense of humor.

• Number of times I've laughed while administering my Google Adsense account? Zero.
• Number of times I've laughed while administering my FeedBurner account? A lot.

I suggest you visit the site to get the full effect, but consider the graphic at right for the Publisher Buzz title banner (which gives me some uncomfortable flashbacks); the title of the recent news article regarding the FeedSmith plugin: FeedBurner Adopts Two-year-old, Renames it 'FeedSmith'; and the fact that they have a "Troubleshootize" section of their site to go along with the "Analyze," "Publicize," and "Monetize" sections. So if you're a webmaster looking to get some stats on your feeds, check out the FeedBurner service. And if you subscribe via RSS to a lot of sites, keep an eye out for FeedBurner feeds, as they're likely to be very easy to deal with and are compatible across many platforms. And if you haven't subscribed to the Texxors RSS feed yet, grab it (via FeedBurner, of course) here.