RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is heralded by many as the next big thing for the Web. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, RSS essentially means two things for the average Joe/Jane reader or blogger. First, it means that you can subscribe to your favorite Web publishers and have their content delivered to you when updated (provided they have a feed). Second, it means that you can syndicate or share your material with other sites. As with any disruptive technology, RSS is changing the playing field and creating new challenges.
For example, if half your audience is getting their content via feeds, what do your Webalizer statistics really say about your readership? That’s where FeedBurner enters the scene. FeedBurner, at the most basic level, allows you to see how many subscribers you have, how many times your feeds are viewed, and how they’re being viewed.
I should add that FeedBurner has not only entered the scene, but with more than double the traffic growth of MySpace, they seem to be setting the stage for the future of feed management and statistics. At Juxtaviews, we’re big fans of FeedBurner’s services, but that doesn’t mean we let co-founder, Matt Shobe, off the hook easy. Big ups to Matt for taking time out for the interview.
Name, age, last book you read, and when you sleep at night you dream about…
Matt Shobe, on the dark side of 36, most recently finished The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz, and only rarely do I dream of electric sheep.
I hear it everywhere. 2007 is predicted to be the year RSS takes over. Publishers are now finally starting to provide feeds in droves. However, outside of a small community of obsessive info-consumers, everyday content readers still don’t seem to understand how RSS subscriptions can benefit them. How do you convey the benefits of RSS to the average user and why has it taken so long for RSS to catch on? What do you see as the tipping point for the mainstream Web surfers to turn on, tune in, and burn out?
Oh heck, we thought 2005 was the year RSS took over. I guess we’re still sitting out front with the banner, waiting to greet our syndication overlords.
Seriously, I think the real tipping point is already underway, near, or just past, but I don’t think it will be signified by the masses suddenly becoming quite conscious of specific feed subscriptions or, uh, trading OPML reading lists, exactly. If feeds are a mass-market success it will be because they help move content anywhere a potential consumer wants it, and those endpoints could be dedicated feed readers, traditional web portals (e.g. My Yahoo), and more enticingly, mobile devices and “widgets.” With widgets, things get interesting because these little mini-experiences permit feed content to power all sorts of things that don’t require any balky “subscribe to this {whatever}” interaction and simply place content somewhere where it’s wanted. A Vista or OS X desktop, a blog sidebar, wherever — widgets make good stuff available wherever the audience is, and often allow them to control the presentation. Feeds are even starting to power live advertisements.
As Chief Design Officer, you must have a difficult job because you are working with a product that offers a huge list of services, yet must be simple enough for your average blogger to understand and use immediately. What have you learned over the years about software design that has served you well in your position at FeedBurner?
Never stop iterating and don’t fear failure. Choose well-understood conventions where they will do to the most good. And seek inspiration in software you already admire, be it desktop or web-based. And for the web, assume that any careless browser compatibility and web standards shortcuts you might take will cost you more to fix later than to try to get right up-front today.
I understand that FeedBurner is funded by several venture capital firms. There’s been lots of buzz coming from some Web entrepreneurs discouraging people from seeking VC money for various reasons. How did you decide that was the right path for FeedBurner, and how involved do the investors get in product development?
The fund-or-not-to-fund decision is one the founders will have to make early on, because it’s going to color how they plan to scale everything. We knew that with success and increased publisher adoption, we would be likely to shoulder some significant capital expenditures for equipment, bandwidth, and the like, and we wanted to also have the freedom to grow a small, skilled team composed of both newcomers and trusted accomplices from over 10 years of entrepreneurial efforts in Chicago. And don’t discount for a minute the value of engaged, active VC partners. I think our board has amazing individuals on it and it certainly doesn’t hurt that they’re also passionate early adopters/constructive critics/admirers of our core services. They’re deeply involved in product development.
When I think of RSS syndication, FeedBurner is the only company that pops into my mind. Have you always had a virtual lack of competition? How do you plan to stave off the competition when (and if) RSS really takes off as predicted?
We do have some early mover advantage we’ve made use of, but it’s our publishers who keep us honest. They like our services, they have improvements they want to see incorporated and — yes — they find some bugs that they want to see fixed, and we make every effort to respond to all of these inquiries as rapidly as possible. I can only hope that if you trust your feed to FeedBurner, we make sure you realize the potential of our services and that we’re going to do everything in our power as a team to make you think twice about ever managing it elsewhere. (But we’ll make it painless for you to leave, should you choose to.)
What kind of software and hardware do you use to manage the hundreds of thousands of feeds you syndicate? How much have your tools and code evolved over the years to scale up to your current volume?
I can’t speak to this nearly as well as our network operations architects could, but we rely on Java as our server-side lingua franca and MySQL as our database solution, running on various exotic flavors of Linux. (”Exotic” to me is something other than Red Hat 9, mind you.) Our hardware solution has grown commensurate with our service’s popularity. FeedBurner handles over 500,000 feeds today and the growth trend suggests we’ll need to keep further scaling at top-of-mind.
Is there a way I can block certain users from using my feeds inappropriately or for “evil spam-like” purposes?
We have a PasswordProtect service that can secure your feed from unauthorized use, but ultimately feeds are hard to truly pen in. Your best bet against sploggers and the like is to report any unwanted use of your content in conjunction with advertising to the advertising networks in question. They have terms of service that should get violators’ money pipes shut down once they are caught.
What’s been the reaction to the FeedBurner Ad Network (FAN) from both publishers and subscribers? Is anyone actually making any money with FAN?
Because we’re now managing a critical mass of online content from well-known blog networks, A-list bloggers and large established brands like Wall Street Journal Online, USA Today and Wired News, we are attracting more blue-chip advertisers. (Which is good!) As you might expect, December and the fourth quarter in general was strong for advertising in general. Publishers participating in the ad network seem to be pleased with the results, particularly those taking advantage of both feed and blog/site advertising opportunities.
Here’s what some of our publishers and reporters have said:
Do you see Microsoft’s Simple Sharing Extensions (SSE) affecting FeedBurner’s current business model? Do you have a different view of how RSS will evolve?
If publishers and others want to use SSE to move updates in both directions, we’ll add solutions to FeedBurner to make sure they can take advantage of those capabilities. We created our SmartFeed service when we first launched in 2004 so that publishers could focus on content and not worry about technical formatting and narrower standards support found in early news aggregators. If a similar opportunity exists for us in “productizing” two-way information flow in feeds, and providing the needed metrics to measure it, we’ll be all over it. It still seems like early days for SSE to me.
Which feeds must you read everyday, and which RSS aggregator do you use for the job?
I use several aggregators daily, mainly to keep touch with how various feeds render in various environments. I spend most of my time in My Yahoo, Netvibes, and NetNewsWire (since I use an OS X Mac PowerBook). I also get a variety of feeds delivered via email using our own email service so I can be among the first to know of any improvements or adjustments needed there. I’m not a big Live Bookmarks/integrated browser/reader fan, though. For some reason, it just doesn’t fit with how I like to scan for updates.
As for feed content, here are a few I frequent: A VC, Feld Thoughts, TechCrunch, BoingBoing, my VOX.com blog “neighborhood”, the Our Roof is On Fire FeedBurner Network feed digest, Belmont Club on the Right, Talking Points Memo on the Left, FanBlogs.com and Let’s Go Tribe, a few eBay favorite seller listings, and the WGN Weather Blog, discussing weather here in Chicago (and of course doing nothing about it). And Valleywag. I admit it. In writing this just now I’m amazed at the variety and capability for personal focus of just this subset of my total reading list. This is one powerful medium.