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Dear RSS, I’ve Met Someone New

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Dear Google Reader/FeedBurner/RSS aggregator,

I can’t go on living with you this way.  We used to hang out all the time. You’d make my day better and show me new things that I didn’t realize existed.  Anytime I came to see you, you’d give me some great times. You and I would spend so much time together, walking on the beach or even just riding the bus. But things aren’t like they used to be.

Plus, you’d never come see me.  You wouldn’t introduce me to your friends. Honestly, our one-way relationship is strained.

Ok I’m just going to come out and say it – I’ve met someone new.  Someone that gives me just what I need.  She lets me choose the way I feel good, who and what I want to hear and even lets me easily reply quickly.  She introduces me to her friends with similar interests, and gives me more ‘feel good’ connections. She even lets me directly respond with her friends that create interesting items for me to consume. She teases me with quick blog titles and links that expose me to new industry writers and information.

Sure, you do some of that, too.  But the fact is I don’t really see a huge need for you any more.

And yes, I’ve heard the stories about her dating others. But that’s ok, too, because she isn’t afraid to share.  If another one of her friends see something that they like, she’s not afraid to share it with me too.  Yeah, I know that’s a little orgy-ish, but in the end I feel happy knowing that I got to experience something that I may have never done had it not been for her being in the middle.

Even weirder, she encourages me to share her goods with others.  And this sharing actually helps me with other relationships.

Her name is Twitter, and she has replaced your place in my heart.  I’m sorry.

Will

Use FeedBurner’s FeedFlare to Get Your Visitors to Promote Your Content

Saturday, October 27th, 2007

This is a guest post by Jason Bartholme

FeedBurner is vastly popular with bloggers and content providers. Sure it tracks subscribers to feeds. But, are you using it make it easy for your visitors to promote and share your site’s content?

What is FeedFlare?

FeedFlare is an often overlooked feature that is included with all FeedBurner accounts. It is a service which gives additional functionality to your existing feed. Choose from basic features like emailing your item. showing the number of comments, as well as the number of saves or links on a number of social bookmarking sites. FeedBurner allows you to create your own “flare” if you would like. FeedFlare is also a good alternative to having graphical widgets in your content area taking up real estate. Also, if you are using a blogging platform, your flare will show up on the psot summaries on the home page, in the full post, and the feed.

Configuring FeedFlare

FeedFlare is fairly easy to implement. Once you log into your FeedBurner account, click on “Optimize” then you will see it listed under “Services”.

You have the option to inlclude features in either/or your site or your feed. I prefer to include more of the features on my site than the feed. My reasoning is that more people are going to see the site than the feed. Once you have choosen the flare for your site and feed, you can use a click-and-drag function to rearrange the flare so they will appear in the presidence that you prefer.

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