The RSS. The RSS. The RSS is on fire
Posted at July 19, 2005 07:37 PM - Category: Site
I've switched over my RSS feed to run through Feedburner. It's an entirely superficial change, but I like the ideas they have for their service, so I've decided to jump on board.
For those that don't know, Feedburner basically takes existing site feeds, proxies them through their servers, and adds some extras on top. The basic service is entirely free and includes a wealth of functionality. You get stat tracking of your feeds, which includes a good amount of detail. It can throw information into the feed, such as your location, Google AdSense ads (for your account, not theirs, so you make some money), and your Flickr photos. They also make the browser-based view of a feed a little more friendly than a raw XML document. Take a look
Probably one of the biggest reasons for using FeedBurner is compatibility. Just like web browsers, different readers interpret feeds in different ways with their own unique set of quirks. Feedburner translates your feed for each individual application to handle these differences. This is a big issue in podcasting, because Apple's inclusion of podcasting support in iTunes adds a number of weird behaviors and non-standard tags into the mix. So, Feedburner accomdates this and serves up the appropriate translation of your feed for the type of reader that requests it. You can also have your feed automatically translated to RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom 1.0 or any other standard that comes along. It's basically backwards compatible and future-proof at once, since Feedburner's doing all the work for you.
I also get a nice little reader counter for my RSS feed. So, subscribe and let's see that bugger grow!
