I Don’t Really Have 34,015 RSS Subscribers

I’ve had a few queries asking what is going on with my RSS feedcount. As I type this article, my feedcount according to the Feedburner chicklet looks like this -

34,000 RSS Feed Readers

Yeah, 34,015 readers, not bad considering I was around 6,000 a few days ago, then I jumped to around 17,000 and now it’s doubled that number.

So what’s going on?

As reported in this article where I asked - Will Feedburner Feed Counts Include AWeber Email Subscribers? - the answer is yes, they do.

I had set up my blog blaster (RSS-to-email service) in AWeber a LONG time ago, in fact, before I even used Feedburner and I realized I had my old standard WordPress RSS feed plugged into AWeber, so it wasn’t reporting to Feedburner.

I went into AWeber, switched over to my Feedburner “burned” feed and now my AWeber email subscribers are also included in the feedcount. Here’s how the feedcount breaks down now -

Feedburner stats

However, something is not quite right with these numbers because I do not have 27,000 AWeber subscribers - not yet anyway. I suspect AWeber and Feedburner haven’t quite got the communication right and no doubt tomorrow or the next day the numbers will settle to a true reflection of reality. I suspect it will fall to around the 22,000 mark, still a nice improvement.

Gobala stated - Aweber/Feedburner Integration is Good News For Marketers - and I have to agree. What will be interesting to see is if some of the Internet marketers out there with email list sizes in the hundreds of thousands begin using Feedburner chicklets on their blogs, thus catapulting them into the top of blog rankings even if the blog itself doesn’t get that much traffic.

Does this mean the Feedcount chicklet will lose its position as the standard measure of blog status, just like PageRank has? I doubt it, people still look to PageRank as a measure of a site’s worth and I suspect Feedburner chicklets will continue to be the social proof tool of choice for blogs, regardless of how accurate a measure it is. Once a standard is adopted, it’s hard to change it.

In the meantime I’m going to go and enjoy the one moment in history where I can pretend I was almost as popular as Darren. Even when the numbers are broken I can’t beat him! (…it’s not a competition Yaro :) ).


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24 Comments

MyAvatars 0.2

Hey, great post Yaro! I have a similar concern and it’s good to know it’s not only me that has the same concern. :)

Comment by Aurelius Tjin @ 2008-02-05 22:30:55
 
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34000 is amazing but 22000 is still incredible. Well done Yaro!

Comment by Fran @ 2008-02-05 23:11:57
 
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[…] I Don’t Really Have 34,015 RSS Subscribers - Yaro explains how why his feed count is wrong. […]

Pingback by Links Roundup - February 5th 2008 @ 2008-02-05 23:36:59
 
MyAvatars 0.2

Wow - I better run over to Feedburner and check out my current chicklet reading. Perhaps it is finally high enough to place on my blog.

Thanks for the great article on Maki and Caroline’s blogs and how they are growing so fast!

Danielle

Comment by Danielle @ 2008-02-06 00:05:04
 
MyAvatars 0.2

So the real question is… Yaro - why the heck are you showing that number in the first place ;)
Just teasing you :)

Comment by Juuso - Game Producer @ 2008-02-06 00:06:37
 
MyAvatars 0.2

Wow, this is unbelievable, Yaro. :-)
Yeah, I had similar feeling as everyone has. When I visited this blog yesterday, I found the readers were 17,000. So why it gets double just a night?

But this is good news anyway…

Comment by Masa @ 2008-02-06 02:43:18
 
MyAvatars 0.2

Hey Yaro,
Do you think I can borrow your feedburner chicklet for a couple of days? lol

Comment by Mwangi @ 2008-02-06 03:32:17
 
MyAvatars 0.2

Technically savvy audiences may come to be suspicious of feedcounts, but the average person won’t care about details like this. They’ll just see the big number and want to join in on the fun.

Comment by Hunter Nuttall @ 2008-02-06 04:42:03
 
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Hi Yaro, the same thing happened to me when I switched to using my feedburner feed in Aweber. The first day things were normal, the second day, the Aweber numbers were doubled, but the third day, things were back to normal, and they have been normal ever since.

P.S. I’m not showing my chicklet on my blog now until I reach 1,000 subscribers. :)

Comment by Pat B. Doyle @ 2008-02-06 09:41:08
 
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Yaro,

this Blog is excellent, I run a Blogging program for Work for the Dole in Melbourne, and many participants really value knowing about the profit side of Blogging which no matter what is leading what encouraging Blogging in its purist form of … Blogging.

Your Blog is fascinating from this perspective.

Thanks
Rupert

Comment by Rupert @ 2008-02-06 14:55:52
 
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Yaro:

You can admit…you were pretty excited when you saw the 34k + subscribors! What a let down to only have 22k. Maybe you should think about a day job!

Comment by ChowMunga! @ 2008-02-06 15:34:53
 
MyAvatars 0.2

I was just looking at the feedburner subscription trends on my list and had to pop in to see how you managed to double your subs in two days! Thanks for the explanation - heh enjoy it while it lasts ;)

Comment by Meg @ 2008-02-06 15:42:56
 
MyAvatars 0.2

Does this mean the Feedcount chicklet will lose its position as the standard measure of blog status, just like PageRank has?

I agree with you answer to that. The main reason being a good majority of bloggers don’t run successful mailing lists. Those who do run big lists normally aren’t big bloggers, with the exception of you and very few others ;)
I do believe it decreases the value some of us will put on RSS numbers, not nearly as much as PR though.

I wonder if if FeedBurner will start counting GerResponse subscribers or if they already do?

Comment by Josh Spaulding @ 2008-02-07 01:26:09
 
MyAvatars 0.2

Ah, mystery solved. Like you, I am also curious how bloggers with large lists will start using these numbers. We could start hearing about some blogs that are not typically on our radar.

Comment by Coryan @ 2008-02-07 03:21:12
 
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Take a screenshot! No one would ever know if you didn’t post about it here :) shhh

Comment by Dara @ 2008-02-07 09:31:55
 
MyAvatars 0.2

Impressive numbers and helpful material. I wasn’t sure if you were saying the wordpress settings weren’t right or you feed service settings needed adjusting. Anyway, good post. Thanks.

Comment by Bob Walton @ 2008-02-07 09:43:45
 
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WHen is your ugly design going to be replaced. I would say that the lack of decent posts and horrible design is what made me stop subscribing your RSS feed.

Comment by brian @ 2008-02-07 12:54:54
 
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Bravo, Yaro!

Comment by Hank @ 2008-02-07 14:57:21
 
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This is interesting I didn’t know you could do this. I think it makes starting an email list with aweber even more appealing!

Comment by Mandy @ 2008-02-08 00:17:03
 
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Good stuff Yaro, I knew that 6k subscribers were a big underestimation of your audience.

Comment by Daniel Scocco @ 2008-02-08 05:33:36
 
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Do you know if there is a way to convert Constant Contact email lists in to your feedburner subscriber list?

Thanks for the good stuff.

Comment by Nate Moller @ 2008-02-09 06:20:38
 
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[…] case in point is Yaro Starak’s blog, Entrepreneur’s Journey. I love to keep records of the developments on different blogs, since I am so terminally […]

 
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[…] While I don’t see any point of doing this other than tricking people into thinking your site is more popular than it really is. I don’t condone anything like this, and you will never see anything like that on this site. There are many ways to find out how respectable and established a website is. For more information see this site. […]

Pingback by Feed Burner | Thinkbytes @ 2008-02-27 11:45:33
 
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[…] Social proof is something that has been talked about a lot by Yaro Starak. People like to do what other people do so they subscribe to popular blogs. The higher your RSS count, the faster it tends to go up because more people subscribe as it looks more popular. This is why so many blogs show an exponential curve in their readership once they hit a certain point. So far my growth has been very linear so I’m hoping this will be a way of changing that. […]

 

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