Rumours have been surfacing for the last few days that Google might be buying FeedBurner for around $100M.
Listed below you will find 7 reasons Google and Feedburner are a perfect match, and 7 equally compelling reasons we should be concerned.
Match Made In Heaven?
There are some very positive reasons that this is an ideal match and I am going to concentrate on those first:-
- Existing Subscriber Statistics – Google mentioned that subscriber statistics are part of their calculations for relevance for Google Blog Search in recently released patent details. Whilst I have determined it is not currently a major ranking factor for blog search , Google are moving down a path of providing personal search results and are continually looking to improve Blog Search.
- Integrate FeedBurner With Blogger – Google look to provide useful services for their existing portfolio of products, and Blogger provides them with lots of advertising space. Many of Google’s competitors offer some kind of feed statistics (WordPress.com), and Google need to do the same.
- Integrate FeedBurner with Google Analytics – I have seen this discussed slightly, but no one hit the nail on the head. Currently it is impossible to track conversions into an RSS subscriber in the same way you can with email subscriptions. This is a major stumbling block for the future of RSS within marketing.
- Intellectual Property – lots of the things that Feedburner do such as their advertising system, feedflares, redirects for RSS feeds, and maybe even aspects of their tracking technology could well have a patent pending, though whatever applications they may have made they are keeping the lid on.
- 422,717 publishers – It is not a huge number, and is very easy to increase with an integration with Blogger. It is certainly many more than any current direct competitor. People are waving around that $100M is a good price based upon 10x earnings, and 10x the VC investment of around $10M in Feedburner. The most important statistic is that probably 99% of feed publishers currently don’t automatically qualify for Feedburner’s advertiser program. Certainly with 1000 subscribers the “monetize” tab is still closed for me.
- Economy of Scale (Publishers) – it is hard to provide tracking for advertisers over 1000s of blogs, and also to handle the payment infrastructure for smaller publishers. That is probably one of the primary reasons FeedBurner up until now has only had monetization options for popular blogs, or “network feeds”.
- Economy of Scale (Advertisers) – Google has a massive amount of advertising inventory, it is just a question of adding the ability to advertise on the blog content network, especially with their CPA offers which would be ideal for feeds
Match Made In Hell?
In many ways I am a Google fan, I use their search primarily, I use Adwords, Adsense, have their toolbar installed, couldn’t live without Gmail, and I am trying my best to not get sucked into 200 feeds in Google Reader.
I am also a FeedBurner Fan, I have a paid subscription to their “Total Stats”, and have developed a few simple Feedflares.
Unfortunately I am not overly enthusiastic about Google buying FeedBurner for a number of very serious reasons.
- Slow Development – I don’t expect faster development of features above integration with Google’s existing services. For me that is worrying especially as someone who publishes commercial content.
- Legal Compliance – I have been waiting for 5 months for email subscriptions that fully comply with CAN-SPAM and SI 3429 of 2006.
This is something that is possible with Feedblitz and Zookoda, but based on my current research, FeedBurner has the edge on delivery rates. What is needed is an interface to customize emails. Would we really see new features faster once aquired? - Ability to add Copyright information – the only option currently is a custom feed flare , but that is a graphic easily stripped by people abusing your content. Then again most of the Blogospere seemed to think a few months ago that no one has a right to copyright their feeds , and that once you publish content by RSS, you have no claim over it.
- Bugs in the API – these haven’t been fixed for months , such as the ability to have a “clean” link within a feedflare unit.
- Squashing Competition – FeedBurner haven’t got a huge amount of direct competiton, but certainly Feedvertising is competition for the monetization of feeds, so is Blogkits , and Zookoda owned by Pay Per Post will likely offer advertising for email subscribers.Whilst both Feedburner and Feedvertising seem to think that Techcrunch is displaying Ads from their network, it seems to me Techcrunch are using Feedvertising to primarily display links to their own sites. See here that Techcrunch is listed under blogs on Feedburner.
- Poor Support – Google’s support unfortunately isn’t the greatest, especially when they suggest responding in “Google Groups” from their blog.
Here are 2 very specific examples- Disclosure with Referral Units – Google made a clarification to their policy on referral units on the Adsense blog. At the bottom of the post, they invite you to “discuss”.
Chris Hunt raised a very important question:But what if I want to recommend the product, but feel it’s unethical
to do so without telling my readers that I’m getting paid for it:“Click this button, it’s a really cool product (full disclosure: I
receive a commission of $2 if you follow this link)”For me this is a case of deja vu, because I was raising the same questions about the referral units and disclosure back in January.
- I have raised issues and technical problems a number of times in the Google Toolbar Buttons Group, and no help is forthcoming.
Whilst Feedburner support is currently better than Google’s, I can’t see their support improving if they are acquired.
- Disclosure with Referral Units – Google made a clarification to their policy on referral units on the Adsense blog. At the bottom of the post, they invite you to “discuss”.
- Fractured Lines of Communication – Feedburner are currently proactive in monitoring the blogosphere, and reacting by giving feedback – whilst I am sure Google monitor blogs heavily, unless you are a high traffic blog it is very rare to get any feedback
What I write today probably won’t make the slightest bit of difference to whether a purchase is made, or the eventual outcome. I am not a gadget blog with 600K+ subscribers – this won’t be an Applegate.
FeedBurner have a massive market share, very little competition, but very low penetration compared to the total number of active real blogs worldwide.
Before being acquired I would really prefer them to have some very healthy competition. Competition stimulates growth, awareness and features.
So do you really want Google to buy FeedBurner?
Update
Techcrunch has managed to confirm that this deal is likely to go through and it looks like it is topping Techmeme.
Tris Hussey discusses FOG (Fear of Google), targeted ads, and analytics integration.
Watch Mojo wonders whether this will scare aware major media brands currently using Feedburner and Heather Green at Business Week has similar concerns.
Marshall Kirkpatrick focuses on the synergies.
The Alarm Clock has a list of 10 positive reasons.
Sam Sethi who first found out about the acquisition concentrates on the monetisation angle. That is a huge factor, as Feedburner have noted in my comments they are “gradually rolling out” the FAN advertising network I think mainly due to inventory problems.
Lots of people are mentioning integration with Analytics for convenience, but none are really touching on what I highlighted, the ability to finally track an RSS subscription because you would be able to place your Analytics code on a Feedburner page, and possibly have Google allow you to track someone actually completing the signup process in Google Reader.
With Google behind it however, I am not sure other players would follow suit (Ask/Bloglines, Yahoo or MSN).
Tony Hung also picked up on something I have been thinking about for a while. When will Microsoft or Yahoo start looking to buy paid review services such as Pay Per Post or ReviewMe.
Microsoft and Yahoo have never been overly critical of either service. Microsoft through Edelman were giving out laptops not too long ago to top bloggers to review Vista. I have suggested in the past, mainly in comments in various places, is that the best way for Microsoft to market Vista would be to give 10,000 bloggers a copy of Vista, they could even pay them $10 as a bonus for their time.
That would be much better than the Google method of paying bloggers $75 per hour to test out Blogger in usability studies.
Geek News Central is worried about Google tracking everything – lets face it, 90% of what you do on the net, you are probably being tracked by 5 or more different companies. Every shopping site knows what you buy, and so do the credit card companies. Your ISP knows everything. Every ad network is tracking you.
One of these days you will be able to use your browsing habits in court – “Hey judge, I was browsing the net, just ask Google”
Update 2 (Important)
I am not the only blogger expressing concerns, even blog networks are showing some real concern about the acquisition.
As an example, Aaron Brazell who is the man who makes 200 B5 Media blogs tick, and who has a really close relationship with Feedburner has now written an Open Letter to Google About Feedburner . Read it and give it a Digg as well.
I would like to stress again I am a supporter of both Google and Feedburner, and love many of their services, but some things do fill me with concern, and many of those concerns are shared.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider giving it a Digg.
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