Alternatives to FeedBurner - The RSS publishing dilemma

There is an almost continual stream of criticism of FeedBurner since Google took control of the service last year.

From the once definitive provider of some of the most interesting and dynamic content on the internet, to the ridiculed and slightly tired service it is now perceived as.

So in this still heavily subscribed sector (excuse the pun) of the industry who has now stepped up to the mark to improve and promote the feed provision market?

Who's made a name for themselves, providing a service that we are rapidly jumping ship to?

The quick answer, no one really.

While, there are other services out there attempting to steal ground on FeedBurner during its loveless period. No one has established themselves to the same extent as FeedBurner did when they first entered the market.

Why is this?

Well I think it's for a number of reasons.

Firstly, RSS feeds are just not the in-thing at the moment, they're hardly pushing the developing trend limits. I still think they serve their purpose well, as long as the stream provider service is doing their bit correctly. The number of readers on a blog is still a very important statistic to any blog owner.

Secondly, people are using the likes of Twitter to share content now. Personally I don't get much benefit on the whole from sharing content via Twitter (although I'll still continue to do so much to the delight of my followers). But you still have the analytics dilemma to answer and this doesn't answer other methods of subscription, such as e-mail.

So what else is out there and where will we be turning in the future for similar services?

I think a lot of folk are taking care of their own feeds these days. Sharing them via the now ubiquitous RSS feed icon on their sites, linking to an atom.xml file. But then it's matter of managing your feed analytics.

While researching this post I've read a number of articles relating to setting up your domains own feed URL. For me feed.digital-constructions.com would be the logical option, but the finer details of how you then point this to an analytical service to offer the extended functionality is beyond my current understanding (I'm going to investigate and come back to this one).

But there are some alternative players on the market and some new technologies developing out there.


My first point of call, was the already established player in the market, PostRank. PostRank offer extensive feed analytics, with an emphasis on grading of feeds to increase relevance for readers.

The service is very good for grading popularity of posts, ranking each post by the number of times its been shared via various social networking platforms, and how many comments its received.

People who subscribe to your feed via PostRank can also give the feed an overall grade, so future prospective readers can get an idea of quality before signing up.

The sharing of your feed is not as transparent as FeedBurner and the overall focus on PostRank seems to be on improving reading rather than publishing.

That said, I like PostRank.


The next service I'm checking out is FeedBlitz. I was taken to FeedBlitz by Louis Gray's article mentioned above.

The site is much more of a direct competitor to FeedBurner than PostRank. Focusing on the provision of a subscription service to your blogs feed and managing subscribers, rather than the analytical/grading functionality that PostRank focuses on.

Featuring a number of subscription focussed services such as responders, campaign management (with newsletters, surveys etc available), advertising and earnings.

Unfortunately, I can't tell you much more about FeedBlitz service as I need to upgrade to the premium account to access the extend functionality. I don't hold this against FeedBlitz.

In this world of free services that sometimes fall behind, I would accept paying for the service once I deem it necessary for Digital Signals.

FeedBlitz seems like a logical alternative to FeedBurner.


Sadly, this is where my search ended. I read a little about Zookoda, a service offered by IZEA, the company behind SocialSpark, they stopped offering this service last year. There are a number of more business focussed solutions such as Blogsite that offer managed services, but their offerings aren't really suitable for this review.

Managing my blog subscriptions and spending more time analysing the analytical information that these subscription bring, is something I endeavour to do more of. I should really bite the bullet and resolve it at the same time as my sites facelift.

I still haven't migrated my feeds from the original FeedBurner interface, which has left me blind as far as analytical subscription information is concerned. I'm planning on developing a long term solution before I jump ship to either Google's new interface or a new offering from another player such as FeedBlitz.

Writing this post has probably been one of the most enlightening and thought provoking items for myself that I've written on Digital Signals for a while. It's left me with a "must action" taste in my mouth!

I'd welcome others experiences of RSS feed publication and subscription platforms. Equally any experiences of migrating from the old FeedBurner platform to the new Google interface.


Further reading:

Feedburner flails and fails - Louis Gray http://www.louisgray.com/live/2009/04/as-feedburner-flails-and-fails.html

Could FeedBurner be replaced by PostRank - ReadWriteWeb http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/could_feedburner_be_replaced_by_postrankcom_redux.php

We need FeedBurner alternatives - Cloud Ave http://www.cloudave.com/link/we-need-feedburner-alternatives

Migrating from FeedBurner to Google - Chris Shiflett http://shiflett.org/blog/2009/feb/migrating-from-feedburner-to-google

FeedBlitz - http://www.feedblitz.com/

PostRank - http://www.postrank.com/

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