My blog continues to experience change; some wanted and some not so desirable. For several years I have been using Google’s Feedburner to manage my RSS feeds and email subscriptions. It’s worked well, but is apparently yet another victim of Google’s insatiable habit of acquiring businesses it is not really interested in.
Like Google Reader—another service that I had grown to depend on—it seems that Google doesn’t really want to invest in keeping Feedburner at the top of its game. Unlike Reader, which Google announced would be sacrificed, Feedburner is simply dying on the vine. I should have seen it coming sooner, but I didn’t notice the news in the tech world.
After taking an entire season off from blogging, I came back to discover that I could not find the list of subscribers that I have accumulated over the years. Some people like and depend on my email notices that a new blog post has been published. It’s a great concept. Regular readers don’t miss any posts, and are the first to read them. I finally discovered that even though I could not see any subscribers on Feedburner, I was able to retrieve their information to import into a new service.
Although a service called MailChimp is the market leader in such things, I’m much to small to take advantage of all their offerings. After some research, I’ve settled on trying out a relative newcomer, called MailPoet. No doubt that decision was made partly because I just want to support other underdogs, but I also thought the team at MailPoet is committed to producing a superior product. Biggest and oldest isn’t necessarily the best. Just look at how quickly Google has decimated both Reader and Feedburner.
So, to you email subscribers: this is the first post using the new service. Let me know if you notice any problems, typos, or just don’t like it. To the rest of you: SUBSCRIBE! Just type your email address in that little white box on the right side of the page, and don’t forget to confirm your subscription when I send you an email. Well… not “me”, exactly, but my MailPoet plugin will take care of all those details automatically.
My muse is returning and I’ve got lots and lots of interesting stuff to write about once I get through tedious little things like this.