Comments on: Google Destroyed Feedburner

By: Matthew Saroff

Matthew Saroff — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:29:46 +0000

Forgot my disclosure statement:

I disagree with the political bent of Pajamas Media.

I’m not saying that I would not go there if you went there, but if I had come across your blog there, I would not be significantly less inclined to read it regularly.

By: Matthew Saroff

Matthew Saroff — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:26:08 +0000

No offense to Tuck, but stay away from Pajamas Media.

They have carved out a political niche, and as such, your being there will disincline a portion of your potential readers.

By: Tuck

Tuck — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:49:17 +0000

You should look into Pajamas Media.

http://pajamasmedia.com/

Formed by bloggers, run by & for bloggers. Roger Simon is the CEO. Instapundit is part of Pajamas Media now.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:39:47 +0000

Google’s (figurative) stock has been going down in my eyes for the last couple years. They seem to be following the same pattern as most successful internet startups:

1. Start with some hot new philosophy and make a lot of money.
2. Hire a bunch of decrepit old executives from a stale company / industry.
3. Watch the hot new philosophy slowly turn to shit.

Google used to be simple and functional. Now I think they are just cramming a bunch of crap down our throats and, like Microsoft, are telling us: “This is better, we don’t care if you like it or not, this is better, trust us, it’s better.”

I hate it that their gmail doesn’t use folders (trust us, searching random shit is better), I hate their new iGoogle setup, where they 10-20% of my screen is now dead space so that they can show their cool, new “Tabbed Screen” technology (that was so Firefox so several years ago). Their online apps are slow, clunky, and feature free, especially compared to their competitors, and their ad selections don’t make any sense. If their algorithms are so ingenious, why are most of my ads about paycheck loans and penis enlargement? That is the same shit I was getting before the Google advertising revolution.

The Google bloat and calcification has begun. I am glad their employees get free salad bars, but I am slowly walking away from their services. A competitor is needed, and I will support it.

By: Barry Ritholtz

Barry Ritholtz — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:39:21 +0000

I approached someone at TSCM with the idea 2 years ago — it never went anywhere.

By: dlk

dlk — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:46:36 +0000

I’m surprised that TSCM doesn’t sell ads for its ex-columnists turned bloggers. You, Merkel, Kedrosky, Then your blogs could have tabs on TSCM/RM and you’d get even more clicks….I suppose while I’m at this game, TSCM should be rolled up by CNBC…

By: steve

steve — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:57:36 +0000

Dude. Just because they’re pushing ads doesn’t mean your viewers are seeing them. Maybe your problem is that by now, for one reason or another, everyone has google ads filtered? I certainly do.

Not that you lost any clicks from me due to the switch- I don’t let my RSS reader serve any ads at all. But if lots of people are using firefox/sage or whatever to read your RSS, or even worse, using Google’s own feed reader, they probably have ad filtering turned on in their browsers.

I’m guessing that it’s not so much that people aren’t clicking on the ads they see, it’s that they don’t see any ads.

By: evangellydonut

evangellydonut — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:49:46 +0000

I’ve seen sites with ads embedded into the RSS feed, those are tolerable. I’ve also seen sites with dedicated RSS feed for ads (eetimes.com, approximately 1/5th of their RSS posting is ads), and those suck. So go with the former if possible.

I’ve emailed a couple of friends at google, some working in the advertising department, see what they say…

By: donna

donna — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:35:11 +0000

Wow, this site has ads? huh.

By: Moise levi

Moise levi — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:32:00 +0000

I agree with you ….
Lets get all financial bloggers to unite and start our own :)