[consulting] Tracking readership via RSS

Tue Apr 7 06:06:18 UTC 2009

Hey Bill,

FWIW - there are several new-ish open source general purpose web statistics
software that I've seen lately. Firestats, piwik, etc. which are at least
better looking than the older awstats or webalyzer.

Also - can I ask specifically what types of problems people are experiencing
with feedburner? I haven't used it enough to notice any issues and its odd
that there doesn't seem to be any strong alternatives in the market.

On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 3:57 PM, Bill Fitzgerald <bill at funnymonkey.com>wrote:

> Hello, all,
>
> Thanks for the feedback -- this is about what I was expecting -- I have had
> a few clients ask about alternatives to Feedburner lately -- my standard
> response has been what some people stated in this thread: rss metrics are
> imprecise at best, and are best used within the context of tracking usage
> patterns, as opposed to absolute usage numbers --
>
> What feedburner used to offer was the appearance of a real number -- but
> even that was always imprecise. But, given feedburner's flakiness for the
> last couple years, people are finally getting sick of it.
>
> What I was really wondering was if someone on this list had found a metric
> or tool of which I wasn't aware -- at the risk of stating the obvious, I've
> been down the Google road several times over the last few months, and the
> lack of anything especially useful was part of what sparked my question to
> the list.
>
> And, for managing my own rss consumption, I use a Drupal-based site running
> the FeedAPI -- what other tool would you need?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bill
>
> Shai Gluskin wrote:
>
>> Bill,
>>
>>        You would find equally useful statistics through standard web
>>        server log analysis statistics on the specific xml/rss pages.
>>
>>
>> That's true... and those logs are distinct from the way Google Analytics
>> collects stats, which wouldn't collect the needed data for this kind of
>> analysis... unless they have come up with something clever since the last
>> time I read about this.
>>
>> Shai
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 10:42 PM, Ryan Cross <drupal at ryancross.com<mailto:
>> drupal at ryancross.com>> wrote:
>>
>>    Instead of sending you links Bill, I was able to find some good
>>    material by searching google for "feedburner alternatives" and
>>    "rss subscription counter" (or statistics)
>>
>>    I'm sure you recognize that rss subscription statistics are
>>    inherently vague and imprecise by nature, correct? You would find
>>    equally useful statistics through standard web server log analysis
>>    statistics on the specific xml/rss pages.
>>
>>    Cheers,
>>    Ryan
>>
>>    On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Shai Gluskin
>>    <shai at content2zero.com <mailto:shai at content2zero.com>> wrote:
>>
>>        Gang,
>>
>>        I think Bill is asking something different. He's not trying to
>>        manage his own reading list, he wants to help web publishers
>>        understand the effectiveness/readership of the feeds they publish.
>>
>>        I use feedburner.com <http://feedburner.com>, now
>>        feedburner.google.com <http://feedburner.google.com>. You can
>>        also enable email subscriptions to feeds which is great for
>>        people who aren't in to rss yet.
>>
>>        Shai
>>
>>
>>        On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 10:16 PM, Brian Vuyk
>>        <brian at brianvuyk.com <mailto:brian at brianvuyk.com>> wrote:
>>
>>            I use Thunderbird as my regular email client... I also
>>            just add my RSS subscriptions to it as well. It's a good
>>            interface IMO.
>>
>>            -Brian
>>
>>
>>            On 04/06/2009 02:40 PM, Bill Fitzgerald wrote:
>>
>>                Hello, all,
>>
>>                A question for the list --
>>
>>                What methods are people using to track subscriptions
>>                via RSS? Many people have been getting sick of
>>                feedburner, as it has been flaky for a while, and its
>>                aquisition by Google has not helped matters.
>>
>>                Thanks,
>>
>>                Bill
>>
>>
> --
>
> Bill Fitzgerald
> http://funnymonkey.com
> FunnyMonkey -- Click. Connect. Learn.
> ph. 503 897 7160
>
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