It’s been said that 1 is the loneliest number, but I disagree. Yesterday I woke up to my FeedBurner count reading 0 and that is by far the loneliest number.
I know I’m not alone, as many were voicing their loneliness at being faced with the possibility of ZERO subscribers.
The internet has been buzzing with rumors that FeedBurner is going bye-bye because its API is being shut down October 2012. These rumors have in turn been dismissed by others that explain that shutting down the API is not the same as shutting down the service.
I favor the argument that shutting down the API does not mean that FeedBurner is being shut down. I haven’t seen it announced anywhere nor have I heard it from the horse’s spider’s mouth. And Google (they own FeedBurner)? Well, Google behaves the way that Google always seems to behave…it is all-knowing, distant, and quiet.
If you ask Google a direct question, was that question heard if you never get a response?
Now back to the 0 in the FeedBurner subscriber counts of folks like me. I discovered my count was at zero yesterday (9/21/12) when someone else brought up that their count was at zero and suggested that you back up your FeedBurner subscriber info (not a bad idea no matter what happens). But, even with my count at zero, I published a post, it showed up in my reader, and later it was emailed to me. Yes, I subscribe to my feed in multiple ways, don’t you? This and the fact that the FeedBurner Status Blog posted that it was aware of this issue makes me feel that this is all just a poorly-timed temporary glitch.
Hopefully, I’m right: my FeedBurner subscriber count will go back to where it was and FeedBurner is not on its way out. Still, there is a large part of me that wishes I would have just kept my native feeds and never started using FeedBurner because it is obviously a one-sided relationship that I have no control over.
Google, listen to your users and respond every once in awhile. I know you’re big, but come on!
