Google Responds to FeedBurner Critics: The Translated Version


After months of silence, someone at Google has finally crawled out from the cubby hole FeedBurner support is now hosted in to respond to criticism of FeedBurner’s declining service.

Mashable has the full interview here, but here’s our own translated/ shorter version.

Q: Revenue for many publishers has dropped dramatically since the migration to AdSense for Feeds. What is Google doing to improve ad revenue for publishers and when can publishers expect to see better results?

A: this is all in the heads of publishers. Google is paying more than Feedburner ever did, publishers can’t count properly.

Q: Will there be a method to sell RSS ads direct from your website (assuming the user has an AdWords account)?

A: hahaha don’t be stupid, like we want to allow advertisers to deal directly with site owners. Everything goes through the Google borg, so live with it.

Q: How might Google adjust the way that RSS subscriber counts are determined to make them more accurate and prevent gaming

A: numbers are randomly generated by an algorithm. The reach of Adsense ads in feeds is the only thing that is important.

Q: When will Google Analytics be integrated with feed statistics, and/or vice versa?

A: like we’d tell you.

Q: Will Feed Statistics contain e-mail activity including forwarding and click-thru rates?

A: email is like cherry pie freshly cooked at a Mountain View bakery.

Q: What can publishers expect in terms of speed improvements – i.e. – how long it takes a feed to update?

A: clearly this is a publisher issue and not a Google/ FeedBurner issue. We process feeds faster than light, we can’t help it that incompetent publishers (most of them) throw in bad code.

Q: What do you say to those who argue having your feed managed by Google is providing your company with too much private information?

A: We offer a better experience (editors note: actual quote, not translated)

Q: There have been a number of cases, on our blog and others, where AdSense for Feeds has rendered inappropriate ads. How does Google plan to protect publishers from these embarrassments in the future?

A: Sometimes people get butch gay dating ads (well, lots of people), and we offer tools to prevent these ads. Clearly though, these are contextual ads, and lots of people write about butch gay dating.

(skip forward a few).

Q: How many people work on the FeedBurner team today?

A: none on FeedBurner alone. It’s like the baby no one wants, it gets passed from foster parent to foster parent.

Q: The FeedBurner Burning Questions blog was extremely quiet leading up to its recent shutdown and move to a standard Google product blog. Will updates be more frequent going forward?

A: we’re busy, so no, although we might indulge people with good news in the future.

Please somebody create a FeedBurner competitor, please!

Share this article: Google Responds to FeedBurner Critics: The Translated Version
More from Inquisitr