Email vs. Feeds (continued)

I have been investing in email companies since the mid 1990s and in feed related companies for the past several years.  I believe that both are important ways to deliver content.  Over time, I believe feeds are going to be a better way to deliver commercial messages because the consumer has control over the delivery with feeds and the mailer has control over the delivery with email.

But feeds are too hard for the mainstream user to use right now.  Enter "feeds to email" services.

From the day I started this blog, I knew that I had to offer an email delivery service. I started with Bloglet and moved onto Feedblitz in August of last year.  Feedblitz has been great and really is a true feed to email service.

Today, Feedburner, a Union Square Ventures portfolio company, launched it's own feed to email service.  Michael Arrington has the whole story on TechCrunch.

What I like most about Feedburner's launch of this new service is that they are continuing to support Feedblitz and Squeet in their publicize page on even footing with their own feed to email service.  They are letting their customers choose what feed to email service they want to use instead of forcing them to use Feedburner for this feature.

That's the way to do it.  Let the customer choose.  For now, I am sticking with Feedblitz.  That may change, but not today.

Feedburner is a great company, they deliver a great service to commerical publishers and bloggers, but more importantly they get how to work with others and that is a very important trait.

Comments

[johntunger]

Kudos to Feedburner for continuing to support the existing options/partners. I continue to be deeply impressed with both th epeople and services at Feedburner. They rock.

I'm not quite ready to switch from my Feedburner-implemented Feedblitz email service yet, either. But I'm tempted a bit by the idea. I especially like the plain, nearly unbranded look offered by Feedburner's service.

The question I have, that wasn't answered in either the TechCrunch post or Feedburner's own blog announcement is this: Will there be an easy way to migrate existing subscribers to the new service if I choose to use it, or would I have to go through the often painful process of alerting readers to a new and different feed service and hope they make the switch?

This is especially a concern with readers who subscribe by email, because on the whole, I assume that most readers who don't use RSS are less comfortable with working online.

[Zoli Erdos]

They may be overdoing the fair support of these other services... So far I haven't used it, but I believe I've started the process, just forgot to implement it on my blog.

Today, after reading TechCrunch, I went to Feedburner to set up the new service. It defaulted to Squeet, I copied the script, customized it an placed it on my blog - all the while thinking that this was the new Feedburner service. It wasn't until I read your post that I realized I just installed one of the "other guys".

Back to Feedburner, where finally I found the option to deactivate the service, then select Feedburner.

[Dimitar Vesselinov]

Steve Olechowski podcast
"My guest on the show today is Steve Olechowski - Steve is the COO and one of the co-founder’s of FeedBurner."
http://www.podleaders.com/steve-olechowski-podcast/

[hi2005]

both services of email to rss and rss to email are useful and of value. they are something like information switch in the web 2.0 era. am i right?

[Eric]

Hi Fred,

Just started reading your blog recently and really enjoy it. I thought it was interesting that USV invests in Feedburner but you don't actually utilize it personally. Obviously if I invest in a stock, I don't feel the need to actually use their product, but I was wondering what your thoughts were when your a VC investing in a product. If you believe the investment is worthwhile, why not also actually use their product?

[fred]

eric,

i do use feedburner and have been a user of their services from almost they day they launched over two years ago.

Fred

[Eric]

oh...i guess i got confused by: "That's the way to do it. Let the customer choose. For now, I am sticking with Feedblitz. That may change, but not today."