I got a voicemail from Greg Whitaker and he asked, “Why is it bad to use Feedburner and how do I leave?'
Let's go back in time a bit. Feedburner was a great idea when iTunes first came on the scene because we needed an iTunes compliant feed, and well, there was hand coding your feed, or feedburner (there were other, but just a few options). So we all jumped on board, and later Feedburner was purchased by Google. All was good. The other benefit was if you needed to change your feed, you could just update Feedburner and it was SUPER easy. That was 2005 and things have changed.
While previously there were few options, today many hosting companies like Libsyn, Spreaker, the Powerpress plugin from Blubrry provide iTunes compliant feeds (stay away from Soundcloud – you've been told). These services are up to date. Also all of these service make is easy to redirect your feed (which was one of feedburner's biggest features).
Feedburner stalls a fair amount of time. This means they quick checking your feed. iTunes is watching feedburner, but it has stopped watching your feed. The end result? iTunes (and any other service looking at Feedburner) doesn't get updated. For me, when there are better solutions, this becomes a deal breaker.
Feedburner's Smartcast (iTunes settings) or is it the smart feed (one of the two) have been known to cause conflicts and render your feed invalid.
In summary, much like the 8-track tape it had its purpose until something better came along.
I'll answer “how to leave feedburner” in a future post with lots of screenshots.
