Feedburner may have been shut down by Google. It was supposed to happen on October 20, but may have happened today. It’s a little unclear right now and there’s no official word yet from Feedburner or Google.
In the meantime, how about some preventative action among subscribers to this blog.
I’ve had a Feedburner RSS feed link on the blog for years, along with a regular RSS link. I removed the Feedburner link in the recent switch to the new theme.
You may not remember if you subscribe through Feedburner or to the regular feed. From now on, everyone will have only the option of the regular feed.
Here’s the normal RSS feed for the blog. You may want to switch to it. I’m letting you know as a housekeeping measure. Plus, I don’t want to lose you, dear reader. So, please, resubscribe if you think you may have been getting the feed through Feedburner.
If you were receiving Web Teacher posts by email, you were definitely using a Feedburner feed. They only way to keep getting the news is to subscribe to the RSS feed.
Thank you for sticking with me. I appreciate it.
UPDATE: Finally some official word has come down on the issue that made everyone think Feedburner was dead. This simply means the previously announced October 20 date is still valid. I’m not switching my feeds to FeedBlitz or Google+ or anywhere else. My only feed will be the WordPress one I asked you to switch to.
Thanks for the heads up. I administer several blogs that have feedburner/e-mail subscribers that will never get their head around RSS. I have used Feedblitz in the past but it required subscribers to have a Feedblitz account (another barrier to participation) and the fee structure is not viable for not-for-profits. I am going to investigate Mailchimp’s RSS to e-mail service.
A lot of people are switching to Feedblitz. Mail Chimp is probably an excellent alternative as well, especially if you have a big email list. The problem with a plain old WordPress feed like I’m using is that you don’t get stats. I never paid any attention to the stats I got from Feedburner, so I don’t think I’ll miss them. There’s a plug in for WordPress – sorry I don’t have the name at my fingertips – that can help replace some of Feedburners functions.
I’ve tested Mailchimp RSS to email service and it works fine, apart from the fact that it only updates once every 24 hours on a cycle that’s not great for my Australian readers. This post makes sense to me http://makemyblogpretty.com/2012/09/22/please-stop-freaking-out-about-feedburner/. I am adopting a wait and see approach but have taken the precaution of downloading my e-mail subscriber details which you can still do via Publicize>Email Subscription>Subscription management.
There’s a free WordPress tool that will do the job. I’ve got a post about it coming mid-week if you want to keep an eye out. Thanks for the tip about MailChimp’s RSS to email service.
Brenda – if you use FeedBlitz email delivery you set the time/date for your regular email delivery or have it send as the blog post publishes.
VdeBolt – I heard that Mailchimp won’t allow affiliate links in emails as part of its terms of service
Here’s a part of the answer to your other questions
1) Feeds are still currently being served by Feedburner, it’s just the counter that is broken
2) We don’t know whether this zero subscribers issue is temporary or not
3) The API is being shut down Oct 20th this is not the feed delivery service, just the API.
4) If accurate stats are important to you, switch to another service like FeedBlitz:
a. Why: http://www.feedblitz.com/feedburner-shut-down-the-facts-and-tales-from-the-front-line/
b. How: http://www.feedblitz.com/the-feedburner-migration-guide/
c. Results: http://www.feedblitz.com/feedburner-feedblitz-case-studies/
I work for FeedBlitz and we’d be happy to assist you with any support you need to migrate your feed and your email subscribers.
Rebecca
Another option for folks looking at email subscription management and rss-to-email auto-sends is a platform that we’ve launched in private beta. This may be useful to folks, and it’s free unlike many email service providers: http://www.launchbit.com/blog/want-to-move-off-feedburner/