Feedblitz Bug Sends My RSS Stats Through the Roof

Today has been a big day for louisgray.com. For the first time ever, I had two posts atop TechMeme at the same time (one | two), with my question around Twitter generating a ridiculous amount of buzz, garnering over 1,000 visits, more than a dozen comments, and several different articles through the blogosphere. All told, it was the second-highest traffic day ever.

But not even this good news can be credited for my huge spike in RSS feed subscribers reported by Feedburner. That... unfortunately, is a bug.


Did your RSS Subscribers Double Overnight?
Overnight, I saw my total RSS subscribers nearly double, from 287 yesterday, to a whopping 570 today, an increase of 283. The culprit? My blog to e-mail service, Feedblitz, which somehow reported to Feedburner that instead of 18 e-mail subscribers, I somehow had 305. Simple math tells me Feedblitz added my 287 number to the 18 to come to 305, but regardless of the reason... it's just wrong.

While I'd like to think I'm Mr. Popularity, I'm still Mr. Small Potatoes.

The Feedblitz blog says its "probably just a previously unknown defect (ok, a bug) somewhere in the code." It might be related to Blogger's feed redirection, and it might not. Who knows? I had hoped the double TechMeme hit plus organic momentum had made me an overnight sensation, but it was not to be. Dang.

At least I wasn't the only one with a temporarily oversized ego.

See also:
Franzone.com: Subscriber Count Madness
BizTechTalk: Feedburner - Analyze Feed Subscribers
Authority Blogger Forum: Feedburner Messes Up

Want to Subscribe to this Blog by E-mail? Use Feedblitz.

Feedburner reports there are nearly 200 people who have added louisgray.com to their RSS feed subscriptions. The vast majority of these subscribers use an online tool, like Google Reader, Bloglines or NewsGator. But there is still a core group out there who would prefer to use e-mail, and get a daily update, rather than be sure they are caught up to the very minute.

That's where Feedblitz comes in. I've been a consistent user of Feedblitz for almost two years, and just over a dozen folks, myself included, are used to getting updates from my blog every day. But, in 2007, I didn't see this number move much, even as my total subscribers jumped by more than 600%.

So, with my latest blog template tweaks, I removed Feedblitz. But, in a conversation I had with Fred Wilson of A VC, he reported 10% of his subscribers used Feedblitz, and they tended to be "a very active 10% because it's delivered to the inbox."

So, with his comments, and in support of Phil Hollows, the company's Founder and CEO, who e-mailed me to see if there was anything he could do to help, we're both polling you, and offering the opportunity to subscribe.

Do you want to get louisgray.com by e-mail? If you do, then sign up here, or from the top right corner of any page on this blog. There's just one mailing, maximum, per day, around 11 p.m. Pacific time, which usually contains two posts.

Has the ease of online feed readers eliminated the need to send blogs by e-mail? I thought they had. Let me know what you think.

My Web Widgets: The Why and Where

I vacillate between wanting a spartan blog that loads quickly and looks sharp, and one that features all sorts of widgets that increase interactivity, community and information. A Web site owner can easily overdo the use of widgets, and relying on many third party sites for functionality can serve to slow the user experience, as browsers are forced to make calls and retrieve data from multiple points. But despite this, I've implemented a few widgets worth highlighting.

1. Recent Comments (from Storago)

Google's Blogger platform doesn't offer an easy way to highlight recent comments, so after searching the Web for options, I added a tool from Storago.com that highlights the five most recent comments on the right sidebar of the page. The widget says when the comment was made, by whom, and on which post. This way, if somebody finds a post from the archives worth commenting on, I don't miss their note, even if its off the front page.

While I don't get dozens of comments a day, I do get some regulars, including Tony Chung of Geekwhat, Gal Josefsberg from 60in3 and Erin Gurney of Ballhype. Others of note include Webomatica and Galeal Zino from NextBlitz.

2. Recent Shared Items from Google Reader

There are a lot of great bloggers out there, far too many for me to post about each day. I've subscribed to more than 100 RSS feeds, and read more than 500 items each weekday. Those which I find most interesting, I'll share via my link blog from Google Reader. Google has made it very easy to share this in Blogger, which you can see on the right sidebar.

Google Reader Trends says that in the last month, my most frequently shared bloggers were TechCrunch, Robert Scoble, Mashable!, Engadget and Read/WriteWeb - all outstanding blogs.

3. ZoomClouds

ZoomClouds takes tagging to a new level. Rather than asking me to proactively tag each of my posts with a specific topic or set of topics, ZoomClouds watches what I write about and reports the keywords, in descending order of use. The larger the font, the more frequently I blog on that topic.

It should be no surprise that my top 5 topics, according to Zoomclouds are: Apple, Google, Microsoft, TiVo and iTunes.

4. Technorati

Despite some criticism of the site's uptime, and continued competition with Google, Technorati is well integrated with the blogosphere, offering tools that summarize a site's Web influence, tagged as "Authority", with the option to read a blogger's profile, add to favorites, and search previous posts. Over the last few months, I've seen my blog's authority jump all the way from the mid-50s in late March to almost 100 today. While some of those counts may be spam blogs, I know Technorati is doing a great deal to avoid overcount.

Technorati tools: Blog Summary, My Profile and Blog Reactions

5. MyBlogLog

MyBlogLog, now a Yahoo! property, showcases icons that display recent visitors, and gives a better sense of a site's community. Even those of us without thousands of visitors a day can get an understanding of who visits the site, what other topics they like, and when signed in, let other bloggers know I've been visiting their site. Depending on site settings, MyBlogLog will add me to a community based on how many times I've visited their site. The service also tracks site visitor traffic and popular outgoing links, though I can honestly get that data in a multiple of other places...

MyBlogLog: Join the Community View the Community and View My Profile

Other widget-like details in the sidebar are gussied up links to LinkedIn for professional networking, and signups for my RSS Feed from Feedburner and blog by e-mail from Feedblitz.

While not fully comprehensive, there's a lot here. What other widgets do you use on your blog and think I should look into?

Feedblitz Adds Twitter Support

One of the most exciting things about blogging is finding how content is distributed in new ways. Through a single post, my content can be read on the blog directly, through RSS feeds, via e-mail summaries, and now, even by mobile phone, thanks to Feedblitz' new partnership with Twitter, announced today.

While I'm no huge fan of Twitter so far, Feedblitz has, for more than a year, been a great way for me to update passive visitors to the blog, who can routinely expect updates on a daily basis, as the Feedblitz e-mail goes out anywhere from 11 to midnight, containing posts from louisgray.com from the last 24 hours. The e-mail comes to their mail box to be read at their leisure.

Meanwhile, despite my protestations, Twitter is growing like a weed, and has gathered tremendous buzz in the blogosphere. (Early adopters include Steve Rubel and Robert Scoble, which helps...)

Feedblitz is smart to extend its content distribution to subscribers who have let it known they would rather be updated through Twitter than by other methods. Additionally, Feedblitz has added an intelligent, necessary, twist. Rather than submitting the full content of my feeds to the Twitter customers, who often pay their mobile carrier by the character, Feedblitz offers recipients a fast summary, and then a "TinyURL" that links to the full story. TinyURL, quite simply, turns long URLs (e.g. www.domain.com/directory/date/topic/story_name.html) to "tiny URLs" (e.g. www.tinyurl.com/77apr08) This will save their customers money, and reduce potential barriers to entry. This in turn fits within Twitter's 140 character limit.

As the Feedblitz site says, "Twitter syndication from FeedBlitz posts the relevant entries to the subscriber’s Twitter timeline as “tweets.” The subscriber can then get SMS text or IM alerts, as will anyone following that timeline." If you're a Twitterer, so to speak, and you want to stay updated on this blog, this just might be the holy grail.

Sign up to Feedblitz now and get louisgray.com by e-mail or Twitter