FeedBurner | Croncast - From Cool to Cul De Sac

Current TV + FeedBurner = Ebay Auctions?

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:46:01 -0600

Hellooooo, Current TV, is anyone home?

Your main RSS feed has been hijacked, hacked or you simply decided not to use it anymore and another FeedBurner user picked up your user name.

What does that mean?

Starting yesterday at about 2 pm a flurry of new updates came through your main RSS feed. The problem is that all the updates are of auctions for Ebay items on Ebay UK.

The funny part is that the new burned feed is an Ebay affiliate RSS feed. Some joker has access to your entire subscriber base and is now hocking items on Ebay.

In the meantime, someone at Current who looks at stats, and wonders why your FeedBurner RSS referrals are down 100 percent from your feed, it is because something is severely wrong.

Tags: iPod Current TV FeedBurner Ebay RSS RSS Feeds dead RSS

Am I, are you, killing photography as art?

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 08:08:31 -0600

JD Lasica had a short post about a Newsweek article by Peter Plagens, "Is Photography Dead?", that caught my attention. With my recent flickr addiction and new found ability to find amazing photographs, art quality, at least once a minute simply by refreshing the public timeline, I thought this piece would be spot on.

Turns out, not so much. But a great start to a discussion, yes.

Article summary and writer's argument in a single sentence:

"The advent of digital technology only exacerbated photography's flight into fable."

Reader comment that sums it up accurately (there are ton but this one works):

"With the advances in digital cameras and film, I think the art of photography is accessible to more than it has ever been today."

Read the article comments.

Tags: photography Peter Plagens JD Lasica digital photography photo art

Why use the .rss extension?

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:30:56 -0600

Why not? Last night I put up a post about how to add the .rss extension to RSS feeds instead of having other extensions. I resurrected my full post after Josh followed up with this comment:

Serious question - why? What benefit (besides looking cool) do you get from this, when there's no standard extension for feeds (.xml, .rdf, .atom, etc.) and lots of FeedBurner feeds with no extension at all?

Still a cool hack, though, Kris. :-)

My theory for doing this revolves around user acceptance of RSS and that the message we give as publishers (see; nerds) about RSS being so awesome isn't a very coherent one. We need a better message and a shiny new package. To me, .rss explains exactly what I am going to get when I use it. Simple.

Packaging feed formats of all types under the extension is a way for users to know exactly what they are getting - syndicated content, a.k.a., "your stuff". There is no need for all the baffling mumbojumbo we throw at site visitors about what RSS is or how it works. I contend they don't care that, "RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an XML-based format for sharing and distributing Web content" (via CNN). Blah.

Check this Wired explanation for further mumbojumbo:

Based on the XML data format, RSS is the simplest way to add Wired News headlines to your site.

Even the part of the sentence after the comma from Wired is confusing, "add Wired News headlines to your site." What if I just want to read it and not put it into my site? For most people, would they know how to put those headlines in their site? Do they have sites?

What I am trying to say is that we need to get our act together and stop being nerds about syndication formats. The nice orange RSS icon is ubiqitous and is used to link to .xml, .rdf, .atom and the like without the end user needing to know what they are. Our messaging should be as simple as the RSS icon and I think the .rss extension helps to clarify what is being delivered.

Think about how easy it is to describe what a telephone is and how to use it. Did you for a second even think about the technology that makes your phone work? Nope. Pick it up, dial and talk. Simple.

The orange RSS icon is the syndication telephone and .rss is the keypad.

Tags: RSS RSS icon .rss extension

What good are 3 hits from Google search results?

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 08:56:11 -0600

I can tell you. It all depends on what people are searching for.

Painfully obvious, right?

Well, not so much when someone searches at Google for intitle:"chocolate" ext:rss. The odds are astronomically high that even chocolate experts weren't even returned as results. See for yourself.

So what does this mean? It means that someone searched Google for a RSS feed (ext:rss) with the word chocolate in the title (intitle:"chocolate").

Yes, the search is more advanced than a keyword or phrase based search but that isn't my full point. The reason that it matters is that not only did this individual search for chocolate but also culture and abba. Not quite sure what it says about the person searching for those topics . . .

So for me, these three hits matter. They are three more than I would have normally received for those topics and a chance for me to get them to possibly subscribe to those feeds, subscribe to my podcast, click an ad (yes, I like money) or get my brand in front of them.

I am able to do this with keyword feeds that I create dynamically from posts that get the same SEO treatment that a normal webpage would get.

The other plus for this type of search is the fact that they return so few results and Croncast happens to be ranked #1 for most of them including searches like, say . . . "CNN" or "Micorsoft" or "iTunes".

I've had conversations with a friend, Rick Klau, about RSS feeds being indexed in Google search results. Most of those discussions focused on my saying that feeds should show up in search results and Rick saying that they shouldn't.

My stance is that some people, like myself, benefit from these results the same way that we benefit from a normal click through to our sites. I am able to do this by checking where the individual who clicked through is coming from and displaying a web page instead of the RSS with the exact same data that was in the feed.

But I don't stop there. I also make sure to let the user know how they got to the page and that they can now subscribe to that feed. It's a soft landing for what traditionally has been a hard look at XML or ugly feed displays in browsers. Which is where you will end up with 99.9 out of 100 feeds if you click through them when returned in a search.

What is Rick's position? If 99.9 are bad then they should be removed. For the time being I will agree that he is right. But that doesn't mean that this is the way it always has to be.

A couple of things could change this:

1) The uptake of RSS since IE7 and and FireFox now display their own XSLT to prettify the XML. Sort of like FeedBurner does.
2) Publishers add their own XSLT for their feeds
3) Publishers using blogs, most of which are dynamically generated, are written with code that can check for referers like Goolge, Live and Yahoo and redirect the user to a page that has the same content as the feed
4) My favorite. Google could create their own XSLT document that loads the feed into it.

Maybe that was more than a couple but I believe there are a lot of ways to welcome feeds into indexed search results beyond having to type in a search like intitle:"Google" ext:rss.

By the way, I'm not number one on this one Google is with it's YouTube property.

Next up, how to create RSS feeds with keywords in the title, how to get the .rss extension added to your feeds and landing pages for feeds.

Tags: RSS search page rank Google search RSS XSLT FeedBurner

Other things I do, more podcasts

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 21:28:09 -0500

At Gnomedex last weekend I recorded a ton of conversations with friends and fellow nerds.

I released them as podcasts over on my work blog. For the nerds that get this feed some of this stuff might be of interest to you.

Podcasts from Gnomedex 2007:

Adam Metz - LaunchSquad.com
Hans Chung - PostReach.com
Steve Fisher - StartupSpark.com pt. 1
Steve Fisher - StartupSpark.com pt. 2
Greg Cangialosi - BlueSkyFactory.com
Doug Kaye - Gigavox.com
Chris Brogan - ChrisBrogan.com
Mark Chernesky - CNN.com
Jeremy Wright - b5media.com
Aaron Brazell - b5media.com
Stan James - Lijit.com
Josh Hallett - hyku.com
Chris Heuer - ChrisHeuer.com

Also, good friend Greg Cangialosi shot some video of those interviews. The first of the set you can see me puffy cuffed and the other you can see me done up in a feedburner (r.i.p) t-shirt.

Download video

Tags: Gnomedex 2007 Aaron Brazell Greg Cangialosi Chris Brogan Chris Heuer Stan James Doug Kaye

We'll be short a Naper nerd

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 09:05:44 -0500

I'm not going to get all sappy . . . Rick, Robin and the kids are moving on.

That Wii boxing champion trophy should get you some nerd cred at the new office!

Tags: Naperville nerds Rick Klau Robin Klau Wii trophy Wii boxing champ

FeedBurner goes Google for 83 percent lower emissions

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 14:05:00 -0500

Congrats to the ladies and gentlemen at FeedBurner.

I've watched a friend work really hard over there and travel like a mad man for a few years. Kudos!

Tags: congratulations FeedBurner FeedBurner and Google

RSS consumption and metrics

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 10:02:57 -0600

I am a RSS stats junkie. From RSS stats you can demonstrate almost anything that you want to (like most any other statistics, but work with me people). You can highlight trends, show how another integrated marketing helped your feed at a specific time of day, try to gauge some ROI from your RSS feeds or tell what applications or bots hit your feed most often. And don't forget click-throughs. There's tons of information that can be pulled from feeds by tracking them. FYI, if you are not tracking your feeds you should be it will open your eyes to a new group of people standing right outside your door.

My buddy Rick Klau over at FeedBurner has released some great numbers and taken a conversation public, so to speak, that many podcasters and bloggers have had recently. The focus of that conversation has been just what are we measuring with these numbers? Which stems from a conversation that page views are dying as an accurate measure of success. Rick's take is that we are measuring engagement. I would agree.

"Your Content is Bigger Than Your Feed
Today's key takeaway is that feeds represent only one aspect of a publisher's overall content consumption. We're living in a world of distributed media after all: people might be reading your content directly on your site, within a widget, via resyndicated headlines on another site, or on a social networking site."

RSS has the ability to more adequately demonstrate engagement since a user actively decides to make your content part of their life. Think of it this way, what if you were able to get people to subscribe to banner ads? What would those statistics look like? You would measure click-throughs, time of day, conversion ratios, etc. Feeds are no different, though more benign. The ad just happens to be your content.

As we creep toward standardization or something closer to a norm for interpreting RSS statistics this post may kick the creep up notch to a walk.

Tags: RSS measurement FeedBurner enagagement Rick Klau FeedBurner's View of the Feed Market RSS consumption

Real French Maids tracking web buzz

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:04:21 -0600

Google translate sends us a visitor (see what we look like in French), awesome. Was it wii friend code, john elway dodge, beck, dr. oz?

Nope. I believe it was a real French Maid (I am only guessing, but I think it is a socialist French Maid union of some type) tracking internet buzz about 'French Maids'. It is possible that they have hired a new web savvy maid that doubles as a secret agent consultant to ensure that her fellow sisters around the globe are being treated well.

So, Tim, you better look out. Soon your maids are going to organize and might just want benefits beyond tight polyester outfits and internet fame. Good luck my friend.

Tags: French Maid TV FrenchMaidTV Tim Street French Maid Union secret agent

FeedBurner site stats went live today

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 11:56:02 -0600

They're not just an RSS company anymore, ma.

Starting today, they are in the site metrics game too. I got a message from Rick that the sites stats were going live today following a couple weeks of beta testing (of which I was a member).

With their acquisition of BlogBeat a while back I expected that FB would release a website tracking application but I thought it might be a different product line. Nope. It is rolled into the same interface as the RSS stats. Good move.

I only ran the beta on one page that listed our podcasts since I run my own nerdy real time stats tracking and have for the last 5 years. What I found impressive with the FB stats was that they made this dead simple for a new user to come right in and understand what is happening with their site visitors and where they come from.

So is it all good for me, no. There are some minor things that didn't report accurately for me but most likely the problem is the way that I set up my URL's in my .htaccess file. The FB sites app is occasionally reading them as 'outgoing' links. What is good about that though is it is still tracking the same visitor through the site . . . a nice nice bug in any case.

I'd look for this bug to become a feature or a hack soon. Of course, not based on your own hacked up .htaccess file but for the practical purpose of knowing what path a visitor takes through your site.

Tags: FeedBurner site stats FeedBurner BlogBeat site visit statistics

The flames get higher and higher

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 10:38:15 -0500

This is on the business tip and recommended reading for anyone interested in RSS, podcasting and the future of business online.

Kudos to our friends at FeedBurner for their press coverage in Business 2.0. The article, "Redefining the RSS feed", is a brief walk on the FeedBurner timeline, a bit of strategy and a nice couple paragraphs about the 800 lb gorilla known as Google with FeedBurner CEO, Dick Costolo.

Tags: FeedBurner Dick Costolo Business 2.0 Google RSS

100k on the way!

Wed, 24 May 2006 21:16:41 -0500

Not dollars! I wish. But we will cross the 100,000 RSS feed hits since the new site went live on April 9th. I am nerd excited.

The picture above is from my homebrew RSS stats app. Nice, eh? It tracks all of our feeds, well the 2 old ones (the one that redirects to Feedburner and the one read by Feedburner) from the last site and the 5 new ones. Since the new 5 have gone live we've picked up on average 53 unique readers of those daily. So from April 9th until today we've gained at least 53 new listeners . . . yes!

How do I know? I'm a stats junkie with enough code under his belt to get dangerous on the tracking tip.

The really big deal is that the website itself is envious of the RSS feeds and wishes them death. The day that I started running the stats to track the total RSS hits and even the unique hits the light went on. The RSS feeds receive nearly five times as many unique visitors in a day than Croncast.com!

UPDATE: It happened.

Tags: 100k RSS Croncast podcast stats

Wednesday's show . . . it will happen

Tue, 02 May 2006 23:46:55 -0500

So I get invited to hang out with other Naperville nerds and I take them up on the offer . . . and I don't where pants. I wore shorts to be more specific but that will be for tomorrow night or tonight depending on when you are reading this.

It was great to shoot the shit (not typically used in naper culture) with other blog and podcast nerds. Unfortunately, this time we didn't get to see two ladies making out near a bagel shop but we did talk RSS, Apple, FeedBurner, Microsoft's impending domination over podcasting when they add RSS and enclosures to WMP and blogging for law. Exciting, right?

Tags: FeedBurner naperville naperhaters Kris Smith Betsy Smith

For those on the nerd tip, FeedBurner Report

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 13:11:53 -0500

A friend of the show and myself, Rick Klau, has posted some amazing data in a report released today by FeedBurner titled, "Expanding Universe: Podcasting Market Update". The report covers many aspects of podcasting thanks to Rick's keen eye on the community and his participation in it.

This report is a must read not only because it highlights one of the podcasts that I produce but because it will open your eyes to how many of your fellow humanity are subscribing and producing podcasts.

Way to go Rick! And kudos to FeedBurner for putting a report like this out with REAL, up-to-date statistics that aren't 9 months old at the time of publication!

Tags: Rick Klau FeedBurner Podcast Market Update Alltel Racing Podcast

Feed trouble and new show

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 08:27:07 -0600

For those with feed trouble: For me the feeds work (But who am I right? ) - Juice 2.1, 2.2, Firefox, IE, Bloglines, FireAnt . . .

However, when I load up PodcastAlley the newest show isn't there. That is a problem because that page dynamically loads feeds on the spot and doesn';t cache them, which means the feed is have mucho mas problemas.

So I am chalking this up to, "Wait I have a big problem here that calls for a big solution."

The current feeds http://www.croncast.com/wp-rss2.php seems to be having issues as well as the one I have set aside for FeedBurner.

Top priority will be to fix this us sometime in the next two days. Sorry for the trouble with this. I have no clue why it isn';t working but the new feed, same url will.

We';ll have a new show up tonight. It has been hard to get back into the swing of things, especially since the house is such disarray. I have no studio!

Here';s a couple shots of Betsy and Maggie from the crazy mommy sale. This pics aren't so good, they came from cell phone.

Tags: feed trouble resale feedburner new feed

Croncast - Betsy and her husband Kris 129

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 05:24:44 -0500

Croncast - 2005-09-30.mp3

Show: #170
Length: 28:01
Format: mp3
Bit rate: 64 kbs
Size: 12.8 mb

Croncast - Betsy and her husband Kris 129

Show Notes

The contest ends on October 7th
Winner chosen Monday the 10th after the first apprentice gets booted
Betsy's new reality show Mac truck vs. VW Beatle
Human perspective, moose size of shetland pony with antlers
Additional Alaskan goodness
Breaking Bonaduce, dude is a mess
Whitney has something on this cat
50 year old homeless men
The ghosts of the 80's with Members Only jackets with Larry Hagman Dallas style briefcases
Door to door knife salesmen
Rich dad poor dad bullshit makes me laugh
Betsy brings out the Land of Nod
An investment
The verb shabbed
Leaving rice in Kris's goatee
Booger out of Betsy's nose
Send in your story to Betsy

Tags: betsy kris croncast size door

Croncast - Betsy and her husband Kris 128

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 05:30:56 -0500

Croncast - 2005-09-28.mp3

Show: #169
Length: 27:14
Format: mp3
Bit rate: 64 kbs
Size: 12.4 mb

Croncast - Betsy and her husband Kris 128

Show Notes

Tom Davies' entry is going to be tough to beat
Sign of Aging when you use
"Guess what I read in Readers Digest today"
As a conversation starter
What kind of job Betsy could get if she started today?
Kris thinks I would be pulling animals off tin roofs in Lousiana
The secret lives of men
Kris believes he is completely controlled by women
Kris thinks I should start a shopping blog
Von Maur rocks
Rude people call at dinner
Though Kris won't just hang up
Further proof that he is controlled by women
Ashton Moore

More voting? Really more voting? No way.

How can I vote some more? I can vote everyday for Croncast?

Answers: Yes, yes, yes, and yes!

How?

Click the green button at the bottom of this page.

New Contest!!

Send Betsy the a story of the funniest thing that ever happened to you and you could win . . . this set of fabulous Vintage Collector Edition Pac-Man glasses that are near mint quality!

The contest ends on Friday October 7th and the winner will be announced on Monday October 10th. Good luck! Betsy will pick the winner.

Tags: kris betsy croncast thinks women