RSS vs. Bloglines: An Informal Survey

While my blog currently directs people to RSS for feeds (i.e., sending you an email when I post something new to my blog), I've been considering switching that over to Bloglines.  When I go to Feedburner to track my subscribers, it seems like the numbers are all over the board, and that I have very wild spikes and dips in the number of subscribers.  Therefore, I have a couple of questions:

1. For other bloggers, what are your preferences and why?  Do you choose one over the other or do you provide both options for your readers to subscribe to your blog?
2. For my readers, what has been your experience with RSS?  Have you experienced problems?  Do you find the feed is dropped unexpectedly and you have to re-subscribe?

I'm still learning the ins and outs of blogging technology, so your comment and input are appreciated.

Comments

[Jake Parrillo]

Hey Timothy,

We sure are glad that you're utilizing our services to track and help distribute your content via your feed. I went ahead and checked your feed history and your subscriber numbers do move a bit, but that's expected. FeedBurner counts subscribers from 12:01 am to midnight for the previous day and we report those numbers to you. It looks like the overall trend (if you move the dropdown menu to "all time) shows a strong upwards growth, and that's great news. If someone uses their work computer to subscribe to your feed and it's in a desktop application, then their numbers may not show up if they turn their computer off for the weekend. Does that make sense?

Here's a pinch more background on how we "count" subscribers.

http://blogs.feedburner.com/feedburner/archives/2007/01/whats_up_with_that_vol_1.php

Don't ever hesitate to give us a shout at [email protected] if you have any questions!

Jake Parrillo
Publisher Services Team
FeedBurner

[Robert Hruzek]

Tim, being technically-challenged, I can only say, I use Bloglines as my aggregator to keep up with blogs I read. I have a feed on my blog, but it's only there because when I created it, I thought it was needed...

[Andy Brudtkuhl]

I think you may be confusing the two. Feedburner is a syndication service while Bloglines is retrieval service.

Bloglines is the equivalent to an email inbox for all the feeds you subscribe to.

Feedburner helps your readers subscribe to your feed by providing a central location and many options to add to your blog's feed.

[Timothy Johnson]

What do you know? They can teach an old dog new tricks.

Jake - thanks for the clear-cut explanation.

Robert - glad to know I'm not the only technologically challenged blogger. Appreciate the input.

Andy - thanks for building on the answers. I've learned my "one new thing" for the day.

I still find it odd that a "subscription" to a blog could just "drop off" over a weekend (regardless of the technical explanations), but I'll chalk it up to part of life's great mysteries and start thinking up my next blog post.

[liz]

I'm one of your readers and get your blogs through rss. So far none of the blogs I subscribe to have had any problems getting to me. Just recently subscribed to your blog and enjoy reading it.
I'm developing my own blog and am gathering a lot of info on all these design factors, so your post was useful.

[Jack Rogers]

Tim - I have not had any problems with the RSS feed. I do enjoy receiving an email stating that you have updated your blog. I do think there is a delay on when the emails are sent out though. I have noticed that I receive the email a while after you have updated the site. I'm not sure how this would be corrected.

[Scot Herrick]

Hi Timothy,

The commentary on RSS as the syndicator of information and the feed reader like Bloglines as the receiver of the information is important. You want to have a service like FeedBurner as your syndicator. That allows your readers to use any feed reader they want...and there are several of which Bloglines is (a popular) one.

There are two other points I'd like to make:

1. You have it correct in that you offer BOTH RSS (that nice orange box) AND E-mail as an option. Some people like e-mail and have no clue what RSS is all about. E-mail is more ubiquitous. So offer your syndicated content through both RSS and e-mail. FeedBurner counts both for you.

2. To get your reporting information as consistent as possible, make sure ALL of your feeds come from, in your case, FeedBurner (mine do too on my blogs).

There are several places where your template may have a feed option: where you have it in your sidebar that you created (this makes you assume all your syndication comes from what you installed...it does not), in your blog Header, and in your Footer.

There is always a generic line in your header that comes with your template, so make sure the generic line is changed to a FeedBurner feed line (they have a technical article that shows you how and where -- let me know if you can't find it).

Some templates have a feed option in the footer, some don't. But you'll see the same generic line in the footer that is already in the header and that's how you can tell. Same deal: if it is there in the footer, replace the generic feed details with yours for FeedBurner.

My subscription numbers go up and down. The beauty of syndication is that it's easy to subscribe. The beauty of syndication is that it's really easy to go away. No requests, no information, no reasons why.

I think looking at the trend is better.

If you need help on any of this, drop me an e-mail and I'll be happy to help.

Scot

[Timothy Johnson]

Liz - glad I could help provide some insight into the confusing world of blog infrastructure. (That's why I keep people like Mike Sansone around.)

Jack - thanks for the input. I'm so glad to see you're one of my readers! Hope all is going well.

Scot - one of the great things about my "confusion" over this issue is that it has provided the opportunity for technically savvy people like you to share and allow others to learn.

There you have it folks, there really is no such thing as a "stupid question"