I’ve received messages from several SWLing Post email subscribers stating that they haven’t received email digests or announcements lately.
Our email subscription has been powered by the Google company Feedburner. Feedburner used to be the best RSS-to-email subscription service out there, but over the years, Google has all but dropped the service completely. It appears their service is either not working right now, or is working inconsistently.
I’ve stuck with Feedburner over the years because:
- It’s free
- It’s simple to use (both for me and for readers)
- It offers options to have either an email sent for each post or a daily digest with all posts from the day
Most daily SWLing Post readers (we’re averaging almost 6,000 on average) visit the site directly; a large number also use RSS services to follow our feed.
I’ve been searching for alternatives to Feedburner. There are quite a few out there, but most have a complicated pricing structures based on both the number of subscribers and the total amount of emails sent. We currently send at least 35,000 emails per month via Feedburner.
I will choose a paid rss service, because I don’t want emails littered with ads from the service provider.
I have a personal goal to make any change like this to the SWLing Post an upgrade in user experience, so it may take some time to find the right solution. If you’re familiar with rss-to-email services, your suggestions are most welcome!
Anyway, thanks for your patience while I explore email subscription services!
Thanks for all of the comments!
I discovered the problem: one character in a post that the RSS feed couldn’t validate. A letter “n.” I couldn’t tell what made that “n” any different than others, but I removed it and the feed validated.
I’m still going to research a good replacement for Feedburner. Many speculate it’s going to be dropped by Google–it’s only a matter of time. I don’t want it to be dropped during a time when I can’t easily transition to another service.
Again, thanks everyone. Please let me know if the feed stops again.
Best,
Thomas
Thanks Tom, I think I have been receiving all your RSS feeds.
Best regards, Paul
Nice to see your rss feed working again. I use firefox browser which did not show your posts but at the same time I had no problem using google chrome. Interesting
I have new posts almost daily usually 2 to 4 a day.but that might miss some in the near future,or as i say so far,so good
Bonjour Thomas. Je suis français (Marseille) et je traduis vos posts via Translate de GOOGLE (thanks Gogggle)
Je suis à l’écoute des propositions de vos amis, car je ne connais pas du tout le fonctionnement des services RSS.
Mes meilleurs vœux pour cette nouvelle année aux membres SWLing.
Denis
Hello Thomas,
I am French (Marseille) and I translate your posts via GOOGLE Translate (thank you Mr. Gogggle) I’m listening to the proposals of your friends, because I do not know anything about the operation of services RSS. Best wishes for the new year to members SWLing. Denis