Friday, August 3, 2012; 9:18:01 AM Eastern
What if Feedburner closes?
- A bunch of people sent me links to this piece that asks if Feedburner is about to be closed by Google. My guess is that Feedburner is probably not closing now. It sounds like they're shutting down some communication channels they weren't using, and pulling back from a business model that wasn't making money.
- But what if they are shutting down Feedburner? This is something you should think about. Google people give me grief when ever I mention that it might not be the best idea for people to centralize their feeds this way. And they're entitled to their point of view, but I'm pretty sure I'm right about this one. It wasn't a very good idea. The fact that Google is pulling back from the service, and that is unquestionable, is evidence of that.
- What can you do, and what can Google do to make a transition easier?
- 1. Google can use the redirection facilities built into the web to send traffic to the Feedburner version of your feed back to its original location. That way people can keep publishing their feed contents and the subscribers will continue to receive updates. It's crucial that the connection between publishers and subscribers be preserved.
- 2. You can use the facility that Google provides to map a CNAME to your feed, so that if Google shuts down Feedburner, you can point that name at your main server, and your feed could continue to be accessed even if Google does not provide a redirect.
- If you have any questions, post them here. If I can't answer them I'll try to find the answer.