RSS Feed Subscriptions Explode to 130k
By Barry Ritholtz - December 5th, 2009, 4:30PM
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Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
December 5th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Thunderbird makes using RSS feeds a breeze-people are finding that the RSS moniker is indeed what it says it is, rather than sending random links.
December 5th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Ritholtz, I believe that your pioneering of the use of 400-point megafonts in your blog is opening up entirely new audiences for yourself — people who read their computer screens from 10 feet away. Congratulations!
December 5th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Krugman told them I went sour on Brasil two weeks ago.
December 5th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Feedburner is now part of Google, and they are in some sort of transition. Maybe the counter is busted or is multiple-counting?
December 5th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Imo, there is no “trick”. There were plentiful reasons to think that stats returned by FeedBurner, until recently, were mostly crap. Notice the utm_source, etc, in the urls returned by your feed — those are very recent, and they’re meant to tell Google Analytics where your visitors come from.
Your site is syndicated in finviz.com, and probably a few more. Google probably decided that Feedburner figures ought to reflect that more than one reader comes from those sites as well.
December 5th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Newbie investors in Somalia?
“…Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel. I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation,” she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony. I am really happy and lucky. I have made $75,000 in only 38 days since I joined the ‘company’…”
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B01Z920091201
December 5th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Barry, it is due to your brilliant mind, and people enjoy reading your take on things.
Simple as that.
December 5th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Chinese pig farmers?
December 5th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Amway?
December 5th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
1) the illuminati…
2) the price of gold will hit $130K by next week…
3) the dow will hit 130K by year end 2010…
3) That’s how many people will be saved after 2012 as seen in that documentary in theaters now!
4) thats how many readers actually get the feed…
5) the feedburner folks (google) got smashed on their recent dollar shorts so they can’t fund operations, hence the inaccurate count…
December 5th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
So that’s where the missing NFP job losses went!
December 5th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
It is most definitely the erudite observations of your flock.
December 5th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
@CNBC Sucks Says:
December 5th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Ritholtz, I believe that your pioneering of the use of 400-point megafonts in your blog is opening up entirely new audiences for yourself — people who read their computer screens from 10 feet away. Congratulations!
——
What’s interesting is that I hear folks complain about BR’s “HUGE FONT” screwing up their EYES…yet using FireFox…I’ve never had a problem with it.
Maybe some of you need to get off “MicroSucks” and get onto “FireFox.”
December 5th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
All the new android users that held out? Most here are PC guys right?
December 5th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
@TakBak94 8:22pm –
It
isn’t
the
size
of
the
font
that’s
the
problem
–
it’s
that
you
only
get
one
or
two
words
per
line
which
makes
posts
very
hard
to
read
December 5th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
p.s. A common response by those of us in the technical persuasion is “Thing 1 is broken? Use Thing 2.”
The problem with this argument is that many people don’t want the cost, disruption, or complexity of having to use two Things or remember when/how to switch between them depending on which bug they are trying to avoid.
It also lets the developers of Thing 1 off the hook.
(having said that IE 8 is replete with weirdness bugs!)
December 5th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
p.p.s.s. It’s possible that FeedBurner is reporting accesses “for all time” (as opposed to the last 24 hours, the last 7 days, etc.). You might want to verify your FeedBurner setting and/or compare the number against the reports.
December 5th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
@bergsten Says:
December 5th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
p.s. A common response by those of us in the technical persuasion is “Thing 1 is broken? Use Thing 2
———–
@bergsten..
I suspected folks here were using IE… But if you go to Firefox you don’t have to give up your IE and there actually is a little symbol down on the “lower right” that allows you to switch over to “IE” if your are searching or posting. (I know it’s that “learning curve thing”….but why folks can’t get used to the simplicity of Firefox has been beyond me. Maybe because I started out on Netscape…and so trusted Mozilla over Microsoft is why I can become like those Apple Folks who believe in “purity.” But, that said, I have a few people I’ve told to try Firefox who have managed to go back and forth between the two and been okay.
The BIG FONT just hasn’t been an issue and its interesting to know that it seems to be “IE” users having the problem? I don’t get that “teeny” long lined poetic thing that your posted in your earlier post either. Looks like a poem from my 7th Grade Reader. SHEESH…it’s gotta be bad if you are getting THAT along with BIG FONT! :D
I don’t use “Outlook” either…use Thunderbird for e-mail. Many small business folks are using Firefox and Thunderbird…but we folks are a start up Small Business (hanging in there and hiring) and the outsourced tech folks we can afford to hire on ad hoc basis (meaning we can only afford emergency calls) all use Firefox/Thunderbird and “free ware.” GoFigure….? Then there’s the Apple Folks who NEVER HAVE ANY PROBLEMS….
December 5th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
You asked and I have an insight:
You have hit mainstream. You are constantly promoted as having called the bottom in March by MSM. You have remained bullish (kudos to you, I can’t say the same, and I’ve lost out because of it, lesson learned – do not fight the trend, luckily I have, fingers crossed, 50 years in front of me, I digress) despite a few cases of highlighting possible imminent drastic declines which have all proved false (in good company there).
Now that uncertainty has returned to the markets, Johnny Retail is starting to get shit baked and is thinking you know what is coming thanks to Bail Out Nation and recent media appearances. Hence the arrival of certain individuals who do not add much to discussion and have not learned a damn thing since October 2007 except Barry Ritholtz is a fairly bright guy.
Unfortunately I don’t think the numbers substitute the quality of the discussion forums anymore – content is still informative. No doubt about it BR, this is your blog and of course you are entitled to your opinions and content – like I need to remind you! However, I think you alienated much of your “hardcore” following with the GS bonus postings over the summer – you and I exchanged a few thoughts at that time. As you might have noticed, many regulars are M.I.A. since then.
Anyways, those are my insights since you asked. Best of luck in the coming few months. I think Johnny will need it but am hoping you won’t.
December 5th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
@TakBak04 — FWIW, I have (at least) five browsers installed on my “primary” system — IE, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Firefox. And, yes, the huge font problem seems to be IE-specific (and possibly even IE 8-specific). I suspect it’s not so much a “bug” as an ambiguity in the HTML specification (what auto-resets when a section of some sort ends).
My wife, bless her soul, knows nothing about technology, and would be happy to forget even that much if possible. There’s no way I could say to her, “you have this problem? Install FireFox” (BTW, the kids have figured this out for themselves and prefer Firefox). And I think the same can be said for most “non-technical” users (we will skirt the “who should be responsible for maintaining all of these casual user’s systems” discussion if you don’t mind).
Anyway, “I” can fix this font problem for myself by using an alternate browser for TBP. I’m spending this much time griping about it because I believe that most casual users use what they get out of the box which is IE, and this unfortunate ugliness makes Barry’s blog look bad, whether it’s his fault or not, it’s his problem because it makes him look sloppy. You and he can say, “well, it doesn’t happen to “me” so it isn’t a problem” but that doesn’t seem at all professional or responsible (especially if one is also fund-raising, soliciting clients, etc.). I’m sure BR has bigger fish to fry, but that’s why God invented Interns.
In any event, as a clearly fruitless expenditure of “my” time, I’ve sent Barry a number of suggestions on how to avoid/deal with this font issue. Aside from being obnoxious for the pure pleasure of it, I think my conscience and desire to help have done all they can.
(It’s most likely a result of pasting Word stuff with heading levels into a post, but can be circumvented simply by not using big fonts or at least resetting back to the normal one at the end of the post. There are many Google-serchable things around about this — TBP isn’t the only place this happens).
BTW, the “poem” poorly illustrates what a comment looks like when blown up to huge font size (due to the window size staying the same and word wrap). Good TelePrompTer replacement, I suppose.
December 6th, 2009 at 1:26 am
It’s because you’re just “too cool for school…..”
December 6th, 2009 at 2:24 am
Maybe it has something to do with your post about pinging yesterday…
December 6th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Your (excellent) blog showed up in my Google Reader recommendations. Maybe that’s a cause for the sudden increase?