Jan 22, 2009 | blog
This was a frustrating experience, but in the end worked out like it should. I have to admit that the actual migration by FeedBurner to using my Google account went well, and the existing feeds redirected to the new FeedBurner/Google domain that handles them.
The biggest issues for me were the longer-than-expected reader-count anomaly, and the not-so-exact steps involved to redirect the “MyBrand†URLs to the new feed domain.
Finally, nearly a week after move the feeds over, the reader count is approaching where it used to be. One or two days eh? HA!
Also, it took a bit of digging to find out the real trick to re-enabling the “MyBrand†configuration for my FeedBurner account. It after getting DNS changes made, and validating the FeedBurner MyBrand configuration, it turns out that you should also disable the service, then re-enable it. What’s with that?
Anyway, the feeds are finally redirected correctly, both existing ones that folks were using and the links here on the blog. Sorry for any strange feed behavior in the last week – I totally didn’t expect it to happen.
Jan 19, 2009 | blog
Well, I finally got around to moving my FeedBurner account to my Google account. Not sure if I did something wrong, or if I just need to wait a few days. It seems that I can’t see any items in my feed now, as I monitor it in Google Reader.
Has anyone else done this and found the same issue? I know I’ve probably missed something somewhere. I’ve got the “MyBrand†personal domain settings enabled, and updated the DNS CNAME records for my domain last night as directly by the MyBrand settings page on FeedBurner.
So far, it’s no go, but I wonder if the CNAME is pointing to the right URL. In the email I got after the FeedBurner –> Google migration was done, it showed a different URL for the feed. Namely, http://feeds2.feedburner.com/Rickmahncom – which is different than the rickmahn.feedproxy.ghs.google.com that is listed on the MyBrand page.
Suggestions welcome, but I’ll probably be testing different settings this evening. Sorry for any inconvenience that this may cause.
May 6, 2008 | blog, happiness
Hi all! One of my friends from SOBCon08 suggested that it would be nice to have a feed just dedicated to my Happiness posts. So that’s what I did. You can subscribe to this feed and get just those posts you’re looking for and nothing more.
Since I can’t remember who made that suggestion, please let me know so I can set the record straight and let everyone know.
Well I do remember! In a discussion with writing/blogging friend Joanna Young at the conference, we had talked about the mixed social media, personal branding, and other content. While we talked about possibly moving it to another site, it occurred to me to try a separate feed for the happiness posts. I think it works. Thanks Joanna!
Apr 14, 2008 | blog
I suppose I should be upset by the current wave of tools & services like shyftr that aggregate blog content and also host commenting features for that content. In essence, these services could be accused (and are) of stealing content.
I guess the short of it for me is that I hope people read my feed, visit my blog and comment because I’m providing some piece of information that has value for them. Like many bloggers, I may have had ideas of being a professional blogger and deriving my living simply by blogging – I’ve long since dropped that assumption. I blog because I want to participate, or want to voice my opinions or ideas. If what I have to say is important, people will show up at my blog.
There are legal aspects to these arguments, but I’ll need to think about it a bit longer.
UPDATE: What I really think this trend means, is that its time to change. When the playing field is altered, the players need to adapt. As such, new perspectives on blogging and conversations need to be adopted.
Apr 14, 2008 | happiness
Finding more of my Twitter friend’s blogs and feeds!
