Why Buying FeedBurner is Really Smart of Google
05.23.07Techcrunch is confirming a rumor surfaced last week by former TechCrunch UK writer Sam Sethi - that Google is going to buy FeedBurner for $100 million. Smart, smart, smart I say. Here's a couple of things I want to throw into the conversation.
Update: It's official, both the Google Blog and FeedBurner posted on June 1st that the acquisition has happened.
Strength in the Business World
In addition to FeedBurner publishing my feed, probably your feed and likely the feed of every other blogger we know that has been blogging for some time - the company's real juice may come from enterprise customers. FeedBurner publishes the feeds of IDG Tech Publishing (PC World, Computerworld, Macworld), Reuters, USA Today, AOL, The Nation, Newsweek and who knows how many more. They are also the feed analytics company of record. If you are one of the many feed aggregators on the web - you must have a relationship with FeedBurner too (we just announced one at SplashCast, for example).
Thought Leadership
FeedBurner is one of the flagship companies of a paradigm that I think is key to the web 2.0 economy - give free services to consumers to build brand awareness, scalability, etc. and then monetize enterprise sales. The value they have a added to the world of self-publishers (bloggers) is huge - number of readers, platforms read on, FeedFlare - the list goes on and on. FeedBurner is big, important stuff for the new world of online publishing. Without RSS feeds to subscribe to, the blogosphere itself would be much less viable. If you had to visit every blog you wanted to read, all of our blogs would have far fewer readers. Did FeedBurner invent RSS? No, but they excercised great leadership in linking RSS URLs to human readable HTML pages instead of pages of XML code - at least a year before Firefox did. That was really important.
The one weakness that some people have said they suffer from is in number and variety of ads to run. That won't be a problem any more if Google scoops them up, they'll have an army of sales people and the AdSense machine behind them.
User Control Over Data
The other issue that some people have raised is that FeedBurner has too much control over their users' feeds. That concern is going to be taken much more seriously if they become a part of the Goog. Data mining is not inherently bad, and Google's going to get a whole new frontier for it opening up if they buy FeedBurner. What's the solution to privacy concerns? In the long run, people are going to come to understand our digital assets, including our clickstreams and other data, as a resource that we graciously let these vendors chew on for as long as we are happy with them. Just like interest I draw on my bank account is mine to take out of that bank along with my deposit at any time - so too will we someday have the option of nearly one-click export and erase OUR data from any given vendor. Big vendors will understand this or they will lose.
FeedBurner has always tried to be responsive to data ownership concerns. They charge a tiny, tiny sum to have their service run through your domain, for example.
If this acquisition really does go through it's going to be good news for FeedBurner and great news for Google. What does it mean for the rest of us? We'll have to wait and see.
See also:
How and Why to Use FeedBurner
My interview with FeedBurner's Rick Klau "Making RSS usable, interactive and mainstream"
My coverage of FB on the Social Software Weblog (good stuff)
My coverage of FeedBurner on Marshallk.com
TechCrunch coverage of FeedBurner
May 23rd, 2007 at
[…] There is, of course, a ton of discussion about the purchase. Techcrunch broke the news, Tony Hung had some of the first real analysis. Mathew Ingram and Marshall Kirpatrick have more thoughts, though Andy Beard did have some sage words it was still a rumour. […]
May 24th, 2007 at
Do you think the acquisition will drastically increase the money publishers can make from feeds? Right now they pay dirt.
May 24th, 2007 at
John, the dollars and cents of the deal itself are a tough call - what it means for the future of publisher payment is not something I’m qualified to guess at. On the technology level though, it’s fascinating.
May 24th, 2007 at
[…] Thankfully, some intelligent people are able to distance themselves from the hype and present a more balanced viewpoint. […]
May 24th, 2007 at
you’re right john, they do pay dirt. i can’t see feedburner ever generating substantial revenue.
May 24th, 2007 at
Of course, Google also gains access to audience metrics for tens of thousands of popular websites. Integrated with data they’re already collecting through AdSense, this will give Google an even greater strategic view of who’s who on the internet.
May 25th, 2007 at
[…] Google sigue conformando un monopolio ojala sea en bien de nosotros, con la compra de feedburner por 100 millones de dólares provoca un alza en sus acciones en la bolsa. Poco a poco sigue adueñándose de lo mas representativo de la WEb 2.0, ahora solo queda decir que después de Feedburner que. Feedburner una empresa que empezó con poco capital en el 2003 y que en este lapso no invirtió mas de 10 millones de dólares ve como sus idea se multiplico y obtuvo un valor en otra época inimaginable. Ahora Google de seguro incluirá adsense en nuestros feed pues de seguro por ese lado recuperara su inversión. Mi amigo Google cada vez me cobija mas..Esperemos oficialicen la noticia pronto en el blog […]
May 25th, 2007 at
Marshall, have you seen this? http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english
May 27th, 2007 at
[…] And yes, I agree with Marshall in that the Feedburner acquisition by Google was an extremely smart move. Last 5 posts in BloggingMyBlogLog Introduces Tagging - May 24th, 2007Social Media Marketing Insights from Marshall Kirkpatrick - May 17th, 2007Wordpress Stats Plugin - May 6th, 2007How to Evangelize a Blog - April 29th, 2007LinkedIn Joins the Conversation with a Corporate Blog - April 25th, 2007 […]
May 27th, 2007 at
[…] Shownotes: Apple’s lesson for Sony Good day for Feedburner Firefox for Mac Steve Jobs and Al Gore Controlling Multiple Macs 100% Hybrid Cabs in New York City 10 ways to save yourself Top 4 Ways You’re Actually Wasting Gas Instead of Saving Gas World’s Thinnest Laptop Bill and Steve Face Off The Nine to Five Workday The Facebook Platform Facebook Video The 337 Project (Here) Soft Drinks Google’s Final Days […]
June 1st, 2007 at
[…] RSS a mystery to you? Check out the awesome video that explains it in simple terms in our last post. Wondering how to or why you would want to use Feedburner? Check out this post. Why would Google have bought FeedBurner? According to the official Google blog, it’s all about the analytics - but here are some other reasons I can see. […]
October 16th, 2007 at
[…] Según comenta Marshal Kirkpatrick, FeedBurner publica los feeds de empresas como IDG Tech Publishing (PC World, Computerworld, Macworld), Reuters, USA Today, AOL, The Nation o Newsweek y es además la empresa lider en estadísticas de Feeds. Teniendo en cuenta pues lo suculentos que pueden ser para Google estos datos, puede entenderse mejor la cuantiosa suma. […]
October 23rd, 2007 at
[…] Según comenta Marshal Kirkpatrick, FeedBurner publica los feeds de empresas como IDG Tech Publishing (PC World, Computerworld, Macworld), Reuters, USA Today, AOL, The Nation o Newsweek y es además la empresa lider en estadísticas de Feeds. Teniendo en cuenta pues lo suculentos que pueden ser para Google estos datos, puede entenderse mejor la cuantiosa suma. […]