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As you may know that AdSense for feeds is officially going to shut down completely on December 3rd, 2012, the main thing concerning the Bloggers now is that will FeedBurner survive any longer or will it be ripped as well. If that happens anywhere in the near future, it will have a huge impact on the Bloggers, especially those who are popular enough, having a huge subscriber list. Not only FeedBurner, Google is also gonna clean up some other services and features like Places Directory and +1 reports in Google Webmaster Tools.
That spring cleaning doesn't really affect the Bloggers. What's more concerning is will FeedBurner really shutdown in the near future? The answer is may be or maybe not. Google has been slowly discontinuing services related to FeedBurner from the past 15-16 months. More 90% of the Bloggers use FeedBurner to serve their readers. FeedBurner is the very first name that comes in the mind when asked for an absolutely free email subscription service. But it seems that this is gonna change soon enough. While everyone is discussing about the future, we present you some facts which clearly indicate that the future of FeedBurner is not so bright.
That spring cleaning doesn't really affect the Bloggers. What's more concerning is will FeedBurner really shutdown in the near future? The answer is may be or maybe not. Google has been slowly discontinuing services related to FeedBurner from the past 15-16 months. More 90% of the Bloggers use FeedBurner to serve their readers. FeedBurner is the very first name that comes in the mind when asked for an absolutely free email subscription service. But it seems that this is gonna change soon enough. While everyone is discussing about the future, we present you some facts which clearly indicate that the future of FeedBurner is not so bright.
FeedBurner API Deprecated
FeedBurner API was deprecated more than a year ago and is going to shut down on October 20, 2012. The shutting down of API doesn't directly affect the main FeedBurner service, though some WordPress plugins and other software which used FeedBurner API will stop working. FeedBurner API was in service for over six years.
FeedBurner Japanese (.jp) Domain Expired
At the end of July 2012, Google failed to renew the Japanese domain of FeedBurner. We don't know if that was intentional or accidental, but the point is that all the Japanese users who were using FeedBurner service from that domain lost all of their subscribers, metrics, audience and everything. If this move was intentional, then the worse thing is that there was no prior notice or warning of any kind. The domain is now owned by someone named Satoshi MITO and it has been parked.
FeedBurner Subscriber Count Zero
You may know that recently all the FeedBurner subscriber count was showing zero. The problem was solved but it took around a week to solve it. This shows that Google is not showing much interest in FeedBurner now.
FeedBurner Blog & Twitter Account Discontinued
The official FeedBurner blog and Twitter account was discontinued on July 26th, 2012 stating a goodbye message. The fact is that they both were discontinued near to the same day when the Japanese domain expired. We can somewhat be sure that there are not gonna be any new features or updates in FeedBurner now.
No Support anymore
The contact link of FeedBurner redirects either to the login page or My Feeds page and since their Blog and Twitter account is also signed off, the only remaining support is the FeedBurner Help Forum which once again is not watched or monitored by any of the Google employees. It’s time to pick up the phone and call Google Headquarters directly.
AdSense for Feeds Shutdown
The latest buzz is that AdSense for feeds is gonna shutdown as well in the first week of December 2012. Although we can find out an alternative for this and doesn't really affect the Bloggers much, it is another strong factor to consider that Google is not showing any kind of interest in FeedBurner now.
Conclusion:
The most concerning part of all the facts mentioned above was the expiration of Japanese domain. There isn't any official word yet by Google for the reason of expiration or maybe they just don't bother about that domain. We don't know if they are even trying to get back that domain. The second most important fact is the closure of FeedBurner blog and Twitter account which shows a deep possibility that the future of FeedBurner is not bright enough.
What do you think? Is FeedBurner really gonna close? We pray it doesn't shutdown but if it does, how big the impact will be on your blog? Share your thoughts, discuss with us and let us draw a conclusion together.
