When will Google finally kill Feedburner? The company just announced that it is shutting down Google Reader on July 1st—a very sad day for those of us who still regularly use it. Its demise was probably inevitable: Google ripped out its social core in favor of Google+ and barely dedicated any staff to maintaining it. The last RSS-focused product Google killed was AdSense for Feeds, an ad product for site owners who wanted to monetize their RSS feeds. With those gone, the last RSS product still standing at Google is Feedburner, and it’s becoming clear that its days are numbered.
Like Google Reader, it’s been a very long time since Feedburner has been updated, and all signs point at a total neglect of the product at Google. Its stats are out of whack, it never got the visual refresh that nearly every other Google product got, and the Feedburner blog has been discontinued.
Seeing as how so many people depend on Feedburner to deliver content to their readers, I always imagined that Google would keep it around for as long as possible—but the Google Reader shutdown makes it clear that they are willing to make these unpopular moves and close products that others depend on (I’m sure the teams at Reeder, Feedly, and other Reader-based services are freaking out right now).
If you are actively using Feedburner, it’s time to take back possession of your feeds again. As Google’s only remaining RSS product, Feedburner will not survive many more of these spring cleanings.