A service where you have no real help and no recourse if something goes wrong is no service at all. Even if the service is free, that is no excuse that it performs poorly or fails. I’m a pretty heavy user of Google services, and if I suffered through what some have suffered at the hand of the Big G, my life would probably be ruined (at least temporarily).
Google has taken over FeedBurner and created many casualties in the process, including clients of mine. Suddenly, feeds are not validating because of blank lines somewhere in a PHP file. Great. Maybe FeedBurner compensated for these slight errors but Google will not, essentially forcing everyone to scramble as they try and fix their broken theme or plugin files. This is a huge waste of time and money for the people who are stuck with this job.
But hey, Google’s sticking to a standard, right? It’s not their problem. Put up a couple of help pages, end of story. It’s your problem if you didn’t have a valid feed, nevermind that it worked in FeedBurner just fine before Google moved it to their datacenters. Never mind any kind of real customer service or answers or even acknowledgement that the problem exists.Â
What makes this worse is that most people have no clue how to even understand the nature of the problem, because they don’t really understand how WordPress works. Ideally, they shouldn’t have to. All they know is that something is wrong and the only company they could turn to for help created the problem in the first place.
We love it when spammers get their comuppance, but often, innocent victims have their data, their businesses, and their very lives damaged by Google. And Google’s response?
Nothing.Â
So, tell me what is so great about that? How is that “Don’t be evil?”
I lost 200 subscribers and they haven’t come back. I just figured it was something I said.
You would think Google would want to keep all these users without making them fix these minor errors. Maybe Google doesnt really want feedburner but they would like to steal some of its coding for some project they are working on. Just about every time Google buys up some other website or service they usually destroy the site or service and replace it with something they have created and they call it Googlesomething, maybe we will see GoogleFeeds hit the cyberworld.
“Don’t be evil.” Sounds good, eh? Who is supposedly the most evil of them all?
That’s easy. Microsoft.
But you know what? Apple has proved they’re no less evil than Big ugly Microsoft, and now Google is demonstrating the same.
And is Microsoft really evil, or just big and dumb and slow?
You’re right to be angry but remember that it’s a free service. Our complaining would have been more justified if we actually paid for the glitchy service.
Let’s just hope that Google doesn’t screw up again and move on.
The real problem that we are all going to face is that google is not only the 800 pound gorilla in the room, but for all non tech types they are the only game in town. We can talk all day long about the ethics and social responsibility that google will have to its small customers or single users, but in the end it will be all about the money. Goggle will be and is under presure to get that stock price back up and one of the best long run was to do that will be to get everyone to all in line and use the same programs in the same way. I feel it will be the Google way or the highway, the only problem is where are we going to go.
I might not like the way Google provides a service or not, but they are also presenting an opportunity. The people that do know how to fix feeds, understand WordPress and do the technical work can be busy. I don’t understand everything about my site and I rely on my developer to help keep it running, just like I have a mechanic for my car.
One of the most frustrating things about this scenario, on our end, is that folks have been asking us to give them another option. (We use FeedBurner, too, so we’re familiar with the issues.)
I’d LOVE to be able to point them to a link right now and welcome them to sign up. Unfortunately, software development, especially at this scale, does happen quite that fast. But we’re working on it.
For those who are interested, we are welcoming beta sign-ups for when our analytics are ready for prime time, and even more importantly, we’re looking for user input now — what you want this type of service to do and look like (aside from “don’t be broken”, of course).
We can’t change what Google’s up to, but we’re hoping we can build an analytics service that’s useful and real-time.
I totally have to agree with Mohsin.
It’s hard to complain about something for free…
The argument that “it’s free, so quit complaining” is bogus itself, but it also doesn’t apply here, because many of Google’s services are not free or they have a paid option. Unless you are spending seven figures on AdWords, Google will treat you with same shitty lack of customer service as it treats people who use a free service.
Also, they’re providing the service in order to accumulate user data, which they use to sell and improve advertising and to improve search. If the service isn’t worth using, Google shoots itself in the foot.
Just because something is free is no reason to cause irreversible data loss, or loss of business. “Don’t be evil” and “Let the buyer beware” should not be applied to same company.
I provide a lot of free information and help on my blog. Does that make it okay for it to suck? to be inaccurate or unhelpful? If that were the case, I would lose readers to something other than FeedBurner’s inability to count.
So I just don’t buy the “it’s free, so quit complaining” argument.
I like solutions. As you have pointed out that there are many users out there that don’t understand the nature of the problems, could you help them?
I am sorry, but you are complaining about their FREE service and not a paid service. You too make money from traffic based on your free content you offer on your blog and I would never complain about (just like I don’t with Google).
However, if I was upset with the advice I paid for from you (which I am not) then I would surely complain.
Maybe the real answer is to stop using a free service if it is not suiting you. If Gmail is down and you can’t get your email, maybe you should have used your own. It makes sense to me.
I am by no means siding with Google and if it wasn’t for your blog post about the Feedburner update, I would have never even known about the change until it was too late (Thanks, BTW), I do wish Google would give some support, but what can you do?
IMO if it is free then you need to be aware that there may be issues and deal with them. Bottom line. If you pay, yell and get your answers.
@Jim – great explanation. I do understand where you’re coming from, and everything you say about being free to leave a service is right, but what if your assets were already damaged by the service? And you had no recourse?
Are we to expect that a free service is not held accountable in any way? I’m a pretty capitalistic guy, but that doesn’t sit right with me.
Certainly we are free to vote with our feet and go elsewhere, and that’s what I’m doing: before I find myself in the same position as some of the poor folks who have been completely shafted by Google and have no way to resolve the situation.
I guess I see what you are saying. I just get worried that too many people are relying on a service without understanding its limits.
I know that if I lost my gmail account, I could be in real danger (assuming I don’t backup all the emails anyway). But, if I didn’t backup my emails and didn’t know that Google doesn’t care about my emails, then I would be in a world of sh**. I know this happened to a friend who had years of emails and somehow could not log in anymore. No reasoning, no explanation and his email has been abandoned.
Unfortunately there is no way to backup, find, fix or anything with your RSS feeds. So, in the end I am in agreement with you. For this particular reason (Feedburner) Google should be handling support requests but for a limited time.
If misery loves company, here I am. I was fortunate not to have my own Feedburner feeds mess up but a few of my clients weren’t so lucky.
OMG, is Google adopting the Microsoft mentality??? Not good!
[...] wants no part of this and has decided to rethink his heavy use of Google services. In his words he is going to “de-Google-fy his [...]
I’d like to know HOW feed counts are calculated. And why they bounce up and down so much. There is nothing on the Google site (nor on the Feedburner site previously) that explained how they count(ed) subscriptions. And personally out of 650 subscribers, I can’t believe that 30 or so subscribe/unsubscribe in a day (not to mention the loss of 100 subscribers a few weeks ago).
If I knew *why* then I could evaluate things better, but I don’t so am just confused and frustrated.
Also, is there another feed subscription/count service that provides as good or better (free or very inexpensive) service?
As you know since you attempted to help me figure out why FeedBurner thought my feed was invalid, FeedBurner is evil. I was going to say “a necessary evil” but then I paused and thought, “why is it necessary?” Why is there no competition? Is there competition but no one knows or talks about it? Why are tech companies out there not building alternatives when everyone who uses FeedBurner (seems to) complain about it? And perhaps most peculiar to me is that bloggers/social media gurus haven’t released howtos on FeedBurner in droves. Try to Google “how to use FeedBurner” or “FeedBurner tutorial” and see what you get. Sure many will tell you to use FeedBurner but when it comes to the step-by-step nitty-gritty, no help there.
To wrap it up, nothing causes my blood pressure to rise more than FeedBurner. Really.
FeedBurner has no competition and likely never will, unless Microsoft or Yahoo take on the challenge. Why? Because it’s advertising which pays for this. Google is integrating FeedBurner into its AdWords/AdSense services. That’s where the money’s going to made. Google is already more successful at this than anyone else. Nobody else can touch them.
@Michael How depressing.
Google has many great ideas and services. As a technology company, they should be responsible with regard to testing and make planned moves which do not disrupt users. Especially when a users livelihood is likely to be affected. (at least give us a heads up! Is that too much to ask?)
The good thing about this? When a service provider gets big enough to not give a shit about the affect their actions have on the people who use their services, they tend to lose users. Take Martine for example, and if Google does not clean up their act and provide easy transition for service users, others will and probably already are following.
This will open up opportunities for smaller, well organized, and conscientious service providers to prosper in the wake of the behemoth.
That’s right Google, if you don’t take your motto seriously we will be there to eat your table scraps! (doesn’t sound very threatening now that I wrote it down… damn)
Google is the great company that produce a lots of new apps and services. As you said it, I am use their services a lot too and I can feel your pain. Their change of services and algorism crashed my friend’s and mine business online a couple of times. It get too much sometimes.
Plain and simple… Keep your content on your site and don’t grant control of said content to another company which you cannot directly control. Don’t be evil? Don’t be stupid.
Michael: I lost about 200 subscribers during the migration of Feedburner to Google. Do I need to hire someone to fix “blank lines somewhere in a PHP file” and so on?
@Marelisa – It looks like WordPress is trying to fix this in their first update to version 2.7. Consider upgrading to 2.7.1 (be careful, back up your blog, and the usual warnings all apply).
I think Alex has a good point — there is really no transparency as to how subscriber numbers get calculated, or why they’re constantly changing (and changing dramatically).
But in Google’s defense (and I’m not really saying this to defend Google, it just happens to be the truth), I think Google merely inherited this problem when they acquired FeedBurner. Is that an excuse not to fix it? No, of course not.
I also have to agree with Michael that the “well it’s free, so tough” argument doesn’t really hold much water (for what it’s worth, I’ve had equally bad service and down time with my webhost, which of course, is not free). In both the case of Google (who are providing a free service that occasionally breaks) and a webhost (who are providing a not free service that occasionally breaks), there are common things like communication, helpful service and troubleshooting problems that don’t have much to with the cost of the service — it’s simply good business.