I just signed up to try out BlogBeat.org on the recommendation of a Mark Evans post. It hadn’t been 5 minutes and I’m already dreading the experience! Rather than write full essays about BlogBeat’s deficiences, I will simply outline my observations quickly as I think that’s all they deserve.

Multiple Domain Names
What’s with the .org and .net domain names? Be consistent! I signed up on the .org site and my welcoming message had links with the .net domain. Here’s the link in question:

You may also choose to sign up at any time by selecting the Purchase Blogbeat link at the top of the page.

Hope you had more luck than me, because all I get was a server error page (pictured below)! Very amateur!

Click for larger image

Where Are The Links?
In the link above, BlogBeat states that there is easy access to the purchase page at the top of the page. None were found on ANY of the pages? What’s going on? (more…)

I loaded up the site today and was surprised to see my Feedburner circulation stats at 0 readers. So I quickly logged into Feedburner and was confused to see Live Circulation stats at 23 readers.

A quick hunt for the definition of circulation on Feedburner reveals this:

An approximate measure of the number of individuals for whom your feed has been requested in the last 24 hours.

I don’t think 24 hours is a long enough timeframe to decide if a user has decided to unsubscribe from your feed right? It may work for the big boys, but again the amateurs who don’t post frequently, or who don’t garner enough traffic are left out in the cold?

I also see wild fluctuations with other sites that use the Feedburner button (the one to the right of my profile picture). Most prominently, I’ve been noticing that Darren’s Feedburner stats have been fluctuating from the 1000s to 3000s and back down to the 2000s. Darren clued me in to a WordPress Plugin for Feedburner that helps to reflect more accurate stats for reader circulation, but now I wonder. Hmmm…

Update: Within 15 minutes of posting, my Feedburner button is back up to 25 readers! And my Feedburner feed is not displaying this post. Am I reading too much into this? Does Feedburner act like a Big Brother?

Update #2: I was so stupid. This post was set on PRIVATE while I was drafting it. That’s why Feedburner did not display it in the feed!