FeedBurner is a
web feed
On the World Wide Web, a web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors ''Web syndication, syndicate'' a web feed, thereby allowing users to ''subscribe'' a channel to it b ...
management service primarily for monetizing
RSS
RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...
feeds, primarily by inserting targeted advertisements into them. It was founded in 2004
and acquired by
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
in 2007.
Services
Services provided to publishers include
traffic analysis
Traffic analysis is the process of intercepting and examining messages in order to deduce information from patterns in communication, it can be performed even when the messages are encrypted. In general, the greater the number of messages observed ...
and an optional advertising system. Though it initially was not clear whether advertising would be well-suited to the RSS format, authors now choose to include advertising in two-thirds of FeedBurner's feeds. Users can find out how many people have subscribed to their feeds and with what service/program they subscribed.
Feedburner replaces an ordinary
RSS
RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...
feed by a modified feed; the original feed becomes a private feed that only Feedburner can access. Apart from advertising, published feeds are modified in several ways, including automatic links to
Digg
Digg, stylized in lowercase as digg, is an American news aggregator with a curated front page, aiming to select stories specifically for the Internet audience such as science, trending political issues, and viral Internet issues. It was launche ...
and
del.icio.us, and "splicing" information from multiple feeds. FeedBurner originally offered
application programming interfaces
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...
(
APIs) to allow other software to interact with it, but as of October 2012 no longer does. As of August 4, 2008 (the last time statistics were released), FeedBurner hosted 1,993,406 feeds for 1,125,264 publishers, including 249,728 podcast and
videocast feeds.
History
FeedBurner was founded in 2004 by
Dick Costolo, Eric Lunt, Steve Olechowski, and Matt Shobe. The four founders were consultants together at Andersen Consulting (now
Accenture
Accenture plc is an Irish-American professional services company based in Dublin, specializing in information technology (IT) services and consulting. A ''Fortune'' Global 500 company, it reported revenues of $61.6 billion in 2022. Accen ...
).
On June 3, 2007, FeedBurner was acquired by Google for a rumored price of $100 million. One month later, two of their popular "Pro" services (MyBrand and TotalStats) were made free to all users.
On May 26, 2011, Google announced that the FeedBurner APIs were deprecated. Google shut down the APIs on October 20, 2012.
Google terminated
AdSense
Google AdSense is a program run by Google through which website publishers in the Google Network of content sites serve text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to the site content and audience. These adver ...
for Feeds on October 2, 2012 and shut it down on December 3, 2012.
On April 14, 2021, Google announced they would migrate FeedBurner to new infrastructure but remove "non-core" functionality including email subscriptions, browser-friendly viewing, and password-protection. This was originally scheduled for July 2021 but did not occur until July 2022.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Feedburner
Google acquisitions
Web syndication
2004 software
Computer-related introductions in 2004
RSS
Google services
2007 mergers and acquisitions