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

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.

The next step is the tricky part, but FeedBurner gives excellent instructions. Now, you need to add the HTML code on your site to display the flare. the feed is taken care of. There is nothing else to configure. Select your blog type. I use WordPress so I had to add a snippet of code into my index.php, single.php, and style.css files. There a section explaining other types of sites and how to manipulate the code to make it display properly. Once the your flare is saved, it will take a few hours to be visible on your site. If you are participating in the FeedBurner Ad Network, then you don’t have to configure anything.

Which Flares to Choose?

Honestly, it’s up to you. I prefer to include the subscribe link, Tecnorati, Digg, del.icio.us, and Sphinn. Aside from the subscribe flare unit, all the others will display the number of links, diggs, tags or sphinns. The del.icio.us flare is exceptional because it will display the most common tags when your content is bookmarked on the del.icio.us site. I firmly believe displaying the suggested tags help push my content onto the “popular” pages of those tags.

Adding Your Own Flare

If you have been paying attention, you will notice that Sphinn is not on the standard list of flare to add to your site or feed. It is called “Personal FeedFlare”, and makes for a powerful feature. FeedBurner provides a Developer’s Guide which tells you how to create your own flare but accessing their API and creating an XML file. If you don’t have the technical knowledge or don’t have the will, you can browse the FeedFlare directory to see what other people have created.

Now What?

Now get the code on your page so your users can spread your content to generate traffic and inbound links. Have a look at the API and see what you can create. If you develop a flare unit, you can contact FeedBurner and it looks like they will link to your site. How’s that for good inbound link?