iZachy » FeedBurner

Bloglines Problem

Ken Cheung — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 02:22:23 +0000

[Update: Bloglines fixed itself overnight. The problem does not appear to be related to CoolPlayer 9, WP 2.1, or FeedBurner 2.2.]

It appears the CoolPlayer 9 plugin may be causing problems with Bloglines. This is the error message I get in Bloglines:

Bloglines has encountered an error trying to fetch the latest version of this feed. Bloglines handles errors automatically, no action is required by you. The error was:

The feed does not appear to exist. This can be caused by the feed URL being incorrect, or it can be caused by a configuration issue with the server hosting the feed. If this error continues, you should check the feed URL and, if it is wrong, subscribe to the correct URL.

The plugin does not seem to affect the other RSS readers, like Google Reader and NetVibes. I'm posting this in case you are using Bloglines and didn't see my previous post on CoolPlayer 9. This is also a test for me. I'm guessing the problem is related to CoolPlayer 9. It could also be related to upgrading to WordPress 2.1 and FeedBurner 2.2 plugin. I'll know in a few minutes if I can see this post in Bloglines. If it's the plugin, hopefully it will only affect the post with the coolplayer tag and not all posts.

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© 2007 Online Destiny Ltd : : iZachy is a trademark of Online Destiny Ltd

Inflate Your Feed Stats with Pageflakes

Ken Cheung — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 19:44:42 +0000

Last week, I posted about the spikes in my RSS feed subscriber stats. Thanks to Jessiec at FeedBurner, I was able to determine the source of the spikes was Pageflakes. On the days of the spikes, Pageflakes subscriptions jumped to about 120 and then dropped back to zero on the non-spike days.

I was puzzled by the Pageflakes spikes so I added my feeds to Pageflakes. When I reviewed my FeedBurner stats later, I noticed all my feeds spiked up on the day I added them to Pageflakes. However, after the initial spikes, the number of Pageflakes subscribers dropped to zero until I visited my Pageflakes page again. Then once again, my feed count spiked up and then returned back to zero the next day.

Take a look at the table below. I visited my PageFlakes page on December 26th. As you can see, one visit resulted in a relatively big increase in my feed subscription stats. So, by visiting my PageFlakes page daily, I could inflate my feed stats fairly easily (I'm not condoning this; just pointing out it would be easy to do). Someone could go to town on this by creating multiple accounts on PageFlakes. BTW, TechCrunch also has a post about the PageFlakes spikes.

	Total Subscribers		Pageflakes Subscribers
	Dec 26	7-Day Ave	Dec 25	Dec 26	Dec 27	% of Dec 26
iZachy	91	65	0	29	0	32%
Daddy Forever	79	50	0	34	0	43%
EDA Blog	96	75	0	21	0	22%
EDA Geek	198	156	0	48	0	24%
Embedded Star	402	275	0	136	0	34%

Free Magazines : : Find a Job : : iZachy : : Daddy Forever : : Embedded Star : : EDA Geek : : EDA Blog : : FPGA Blog
© 2006 Online Destiny Ltd : : iZachy is a trademark of Online Destiny Ltd

FeedBurner Spikes

Ken Cheung — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 07:37:09 +0000

Something odd happened to one of my FeedBurner feed last week. As you can see in the feed subscribers graph below, there are two big spikes — Sunday and Tuesday. I have no idea why. The rest of the week is about right. It seems really odd there would be big spikes for feed subscribers. What happened after the spikes? Did all those people unsubscribed from the feed?

Free Magazines : : Find a Job : : iZachy : : Daddy Forever : : Embedded Star : : EDA Geek : : EDA Blog : : FPGA Blog
© 2006 Online Destiny Ltd : : iZachy is a trademark of Online Destiny Ltd

FeedFlares for RSS Text Ads

Ken Cheung — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 18:58:56 +0000

When TLA launched their Feedvertising RSS text ads, the text links reminded me of FeedBurner's FeedFlare. If you are reading this post from an RSS reader, you will notice a bunch of text links at the bottom of the post (like "Email this" and "Digg this"). FeedBurner calls those text links FeedFlares. Today, you will also notice text links for iZachy Home, Daddy Forever, Embedded Star, EDA Geek, and EDA Blog at the bottom of the RSS feed for each post listed. Those are FeedFlares I created for my other sites. My FeedFlares work in Bloglines, NewsGator, and Google RSS Reader. They work with other RSS readers too, but I've only tested on the readers mentioned previously.

Read FeedFlares for RSS Text Ads (370 words)

Free Magazines : : Find a Job : : iZachy : : Daddy Forever : : Embedded Star : : EDA Geek : : EDA Blog : : FPGA Blog
© 2006 Online Destiny Ltd : : iZachy is a trademark of Online Destiny Ltd

Switching Newsletter to FeedBurner

Ken Cheung — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 21:53:19 +0000

In an earlier post, I reported on the reliability of various email broadcast services. I noted that Zookoda seems to be least reliable of the email services I tested. Until this week, I stuck with Zookoda because of the many free features that they offered. However, as some of you have already noticed, I finally gave in and switched to Feedburner. Even though FeedBlitz was more reliable in my tests, I went with FeedBurner because of three reasons: (1) the image verification step was handled via a pop-up, which didn't take my readers away from my site, (2) less branding by the email service provider, and (3) option to select a two-hour window to send out emails. I hate pop-ups and I know some pop-up blockers may block the image verification step, but I feel this option is better than having readers taken off my site.

Free Magazines : : Find a Job : : iZachy : : Daddy Forever : : Embedded Star : : EDA Geek : : EDA Blog : : FPGA Blog
© 2006 Online Destiny Ltd : : iZachy is a trademark of Online Destiny Ltd

FeedBurner Email Review

Ken Cheung — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 21:48:06 +0000

This is a second in a series of reviews on email broadcasting services. Today I am reviewing FeedBurner Email. Like Zookoda, FeedBurner is a free, web-hosted solution. In my test drive, I found FeedBurner was easy to setup. This was because the only option you can change is the from address for the newsletters. After that, all you have to do is copy and paste the subscription form code to your site.

Read FeedBurner Email Review (450 words)

Free Magazines : : Find a Job : : iZachy : : Daddy Forever : : Embedded Star : : EDA Geek : : EDA Blog : : FPGA Blog
© 2006 Online Destiny Ltd : : iZachy is a trademark of Online Destiny Ltd

Adsense, YPN, Chitika, and FeedBurner News

Ken Cheung — Wed, 24 May 2006 00:19:26 +0000

OK, what's going on? It seems like in the past few days, there has been a flurry of activities from Yahoo, Google, and others. Today, Google announced their new video ads on their blog. If you opt into image ads, you will be opted into video ads as well. Though this doesn't mean video ads will run on your site. The video ads will use the following formats: 300×250 Medium Rectangle, 336×280 Large Rectangle, or 250×250 Square. Hmmm. Since I've started running 3 ad units on some of my sites, I noticed my sites take longer to load. Now, with the video (and Flash) ads, my sites will slow down even more. I might have to decrease the number of ad units and/or go back to text-only ads.

Read Adsense, YPN, Chitika, and FeedBurner News (445 words)

Free Magazines : : Find a Job : : iZachy : : Daddy Forever : : Embedded Star : : EDA Geek : : EDA Blog : : FPGA Blog
© 2006 Online Destiny Ltd : : iZachy is a trademark of Online Destiny Ltd