Satan Delivers Cruel Ironic Punishment to Dead Rooster
Dear Devil,
After I published my post about how one shouldn’t display one’s feedcount until one has at least 100 subscribers, you couldn’t wait to set it on fire, could you…
What did I ever do to you?
I was minding my own business, basking in the glow of my 190 subscribers; looking forward to the big 200; practically tasting the Poptarts at my next milestone party, when you sent Google to burn me with the toaster!
YESTERDAY: I log in to my feedburner account and, without any warning whatsoever, I’m met with a message stating that I MUST migrate all my subscribers to my Google account… and that there MIGHT be some temporary loss of subscribers… POSSIBLY resulting in a feedcount of ZERO…
Terrific!
OK, so I am pretty sure things are going to screw up when I do it, but I do it anyway and you slice my 190 subscribers down to 78; making sure it’s well below the aforementioned 100 just to make me look like a jackass.
I’ve already got Pwn Greenland leaving smack-related comments…
Thanks a lot Satan, see if I behead any more stuffed-animals for you!
Your friend,
Rooster
xxxo
Note to my readers: at the time of this writing, my feedcount stands at 78; who knows what it will be by the time you guys see this post… maybe it will be zero… won’t that be fun?
Did you know you can get Dead Rooster delivered straight into your email box or RSS feed reader? Visit the top of the sidebar to subscribe. It’s FREE!
Dead Rooster is the online home of 
WTF is that all about? Is Google jealous? Does this mean everyone else will have to do this also? I am so going to be pissed if I have to move. It can play hell on me and my 6 subscribers. I can’t afford to lose even one. Oh damn you Google.
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William McCamment
reply on January 21st, 2009 7:16 am:
I think it’s all just part of Google’s plan for world domination.
(actually, I should be nice to Google; they’ve been pretty good to me in their search engine)
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Well, I figure now’s as good a time as any, since I have between 5 and 8 subscribers depending on the day.
Don’t worry, DR, you aren’t actually losing subscribers–as FB described it, they just aren’t *counting* them correctly during the week of your transition. That’s better, isn’t it? Unless people start leaving because they think *other* people are leaving. (WHich would be dumb and sheepy, and frankly I can’t imagine anyone leaving such a good blog.)
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William McCamment
reply on January 21st, 2009 7:17 am:
I can’t wait to see how this whole thing plays out. As of this morning, when I log into my account, I can see my email subscribers. Last night, they were invisible.
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Evil, evil google. Don’t they understand this is a new Era?
Everyone should have woken up this morning with a magic extra 100 subscribers, not less.
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William McCamment
reply on January 21st, 2009 7:18 am:
I like the way you think! LOL
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I migrated to feedburner.google a few days ago, and something seems very Not Right. At first, I went from my usual of around 190 to about 135. The next day I went up to the 400′s, the next day I was in the 500′s and today it shows I have 622 readers. Something seems very wrong!
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William McCamment
reply on January 21st, 2009 7:21 am:
Wow! I wonder if the new Google platform automatically converts all RSS feeds to the new feedburner. You probably had all those subscribers all along, but feedburner didn’t convert the stray wordpress and other feeds.
I wish there was a plugin that converted feedcat feeds to feedburner, I’ve got more than 1,200 of those babys! LOL
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Rebecca
reply on January 21st, 2009 6:52 pm:
Are you saying that you have to set up feedburner reminders to feed your cats?
Is it too late? Are they dead?
There is no way my cats would ever let me forget to feed them!
Or is this some other newfangled word that I don’t know?
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Satan is appeased by your beheading of soft toys and has duly increased your FeedCount to an acceptable level. However, he did retain a portion of your original 190 minions; this is because he found their cries of agony to be an exquisite symphony in the darkest depths of Hell.
He says you probably won’t mind about that though.
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William McCamment
reply on January 21st, 2009 7:43 am:
When I got up this morning, it was still at 78. I guess I’d better get busy lopping off the heads of various Looney Tunes characters…
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Ten bucks says you won’t kill Road Runner.
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William McCamment
reply on January 21st, 2009 7:56 am:
If Satan wants me to I will…
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Pwn Greenland
reply on January 21st, 2009 7:58 am:
ACME Inc. is awaiting your call.
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I hope you plan to share your Poptarts….
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William McCamment
reply on January 21st, 2009 8:07 am:
I’ll be sharing a lot more than Poptarts with you, sweetheart…
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So that’s what happened! I’ve been fretting for days, wondering why my blog suddenly sucks as everybody has cancelled their readership. Phew!
Unless I really do suck, in which case I shall carry on fretting.
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William McCamment
reply on January 21st, 2009 10:01 am:
Let’s hope we both become pleasantly surprised in the next few days the way Daisy (see above comment) was.
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Feedcount at 147. It will be back up in no time!
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William McCamment
reply on January 21st, 2009 10:02 am:
I sure hope so, I’m so emotional right now… LOL
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I have faith in you. I use google reader, btw, so I assume that doesn’t show up in your feed numbers?
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William McCamment
reply on January 21st, 2009 10:43 am:
Actually, Father, it SHOULD show up in my feed numbers. If you recieved this latest post, you are on my feed list.
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Since I’m both evil AND have very few feed subscribers I’m completely okay with the switch over. And, for the sacrifice of beheading a beanie baby I can probably hook you up with an influx of new readers.
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William McCamment
reply on January 22nd, 2009 6:08 am:
Maybe I should set up an entire Beanie Baby Mutilation site. LOL
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I heard there were Pop Tarts here.
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William McCamment
reply on January 22nd, 2009 6:08 am:
Get in line — there’s plenty for everybody.
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hatingtherain
reply on January 31st, 2009 11:30 am:
stay away from MY Poptarts!!!!
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I gave up on FeedBurner for the second and last time about three weeks ago. They weren’t updating my posts. Since I have new posts daily, it wasn’t long before they were several posts behind.
So I dropped FeedBurner and now use my default WordPress feeds, as in about four feeds. Then I got the feeds stat plugin.
I now have over 100 subscribers, where with FeedBurner I only had 40. Gee I wonder if that’s because the wp feeds updates my new posts on time? *sarcasm*
My opinion is Google should stay with its search engine (where they lead because they wrote the rules) and leave the rest alone.
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William McCamment
reply on January 22nd, 2009 6:09 am:
If you use the feedsmith plugin, it will convert ALL your feeds to feedburner feeds. Maybe you should check that out…
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Lea
reply on January 22nd, 2009 7:35 pm:
Yes, I know. I was using the FeedBurner plugin.
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I am very sorry, that you lost so many subscribes, but, I think, they will return to you, but actually I don’t understand why all this happened, why feedburner asked you to migrate all your subscribers to Google account? So please explain, because I also have an account on feedburner, and I don’t want to loose me subscribes.
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William McCamment
reply on January 22nd, 2009 6:11 am:
If you log into your feedburner account, you will notice a nag bar at the top of the screen indicating you must migrate. Click the link and Google will explain the whole thing. They say that the loss of subscribers is temporary (we’ll see).
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At least you can all see your subscribers. I did the changeover, and now can’t see my subscribers anywhere. I suppose they are getting feeds, but I can’t tell since Google Feedburner lists nothing and asks me to burn a feed everytime I check.
22 hours and counting since the message said the changeover was “successful”
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William McCamment
reply on January 22nd, 2009 9:49 am:
I was unable to see my subscribers in the new Google account for the first 24 hours.
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Yes, I was content with feedburner, why did they feel the need to change it all? Maybe in order to push their analytic site, because now there is no more visitor statistic on feedburner. But your feeds are recovering so congatulations…
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William McCamment
reply on January 22nd, 2009 9:12 pm:
I think google just wants everything to flow through them. There are very few major entities online that they don’t have a hand in.
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LOL! I just broke the “100″ mark … I swear to god I thought you were makin’ fun of me!!
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William McCamment
reply on January 22nd, 2009 9:13 pm:
Are you KIDDING! I would never make fun of you… you are the only one that ever mentions me other than my mom!
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William Que pasa ?
All we are doing is helping Google fire all those lamers that work at feedburner.
Google is also killing a few other sites they have to open Google Social.
Anyway who cares about Google I hope your doing great and all is well.
Stumbled
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William McCamment
reply on January 23rd, 2009 5:32 am:
Haha! Hey, you’re right! Maybe the Google people will run a tighter ship.
Thanks for the Stumble!
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I migrated over the other day and seem to be missing about 30. Whether they are really lost and wondering where their Cabbages are, or whether they are there but lost on tracking numbers only, I do not know.
Best of luck to you in getting your folks back. LASSIE- COME HOME!!
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William McCamment
reply on January 23rd, 2009 10:56 am:
Where are my Cabbages! LOL
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i’ve got a statscounter plugin at WP and statistics from MyBloglog, both reflect an increased amount of traffic relative to each other but i don’t get much at feedburner which i think is not reflective of the real stats. I’ve got an article that was stumbled and another that went to popular category at MIXX only after 2 days (65 votes) .. it showed on my stats counter and Mybloglog but not on Feedburner. I also got a lot of feedback from my other social sites and my friends and new visitors at stumble so i think Feedburner is not doing its job well.
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William McCamment
reply on January 23rd, 2009 11:02 am:
Feedburner doesn’t keep track of hits, only subscribers that receive your feed in their email or RSS reader. So, that’s why there’s a discrepancy.
Congratulations for going popular on mixx — I’ve never been popular on there before. Good job! You deserve it.
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I hate techie stuff!
But it looks like your count is back up to 189 now.
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William McCamment
reply on January 24th, 2009 5:35 am:
Looks like things are finally getting back to normal.
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I find the most accurate way of counting my readers is to take to the streets and ask everyone if they read my web-log.
If they answer ‘yes’, I mark them down on my clipboard. If they answer ‘no’, I beat them with a stick until they see the error of their ways.
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William McCamment
reply on January 24th, 2009 4:28 pm:
Ask them if they read Dead Rooster too! If they say “no,” make sure you pummel them for me as well.
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I must say, that your writing style is soo funny!
Even though you must have been frustrated when you found out that your count went down.. I must say .. it was hilarious reading it!
Keep up your writing!
Ingrid <333
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William McCamment
reply on January 24th, 2009 4:29 pm:
Thanks, Ingrid! I appreciate the kind words.
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I am now following you on my google reader. So if Google decides to play more games, you will at least have one new follower.
Great post!
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William McCamment
reply on January 25th, 2009 8:35 pm:
Thanks! I really appreciate it!
It looks like things are starting to get closer to normal.
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It is a conspiracy, I tell ya! I just broke FOUR HUNDRED on my feed and now this???
Maybe I shouldn’t have called Google the Antichrist so often.
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William McCamment
reply on January 25th, 2009 8:39 pm:
Yours will probably shoot UP to over 1,000 after you migrate. Some people are reporting increases (but, not many).
I wish I had a way to transfer feedcat to feedburner, I’ve got over 1,000 of those!
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Right now it’s at 180. Don’t worry abut this. It happens to all of us at some point or another.
Have a terrific day.
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William McCamment
reply on January 27th, 2009 1:44 pm:
Thanks, I won’t worry worry too much about RSS feeds. It’s just that I wrote that article about it right before I got the migration letter and it made me look like a knucklehead.
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I did this the other day. I was so unbelievably afraid of losing all my subscribers. But, thankfully, all my 0 subscribers remained intact. Whew!
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William McCamment
reply on January 27th, 2009 1:46 pm:
Haha! You got LUCKY!
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Hey William
i’m glad to see that your count is back on track. I was going through a similar problem. after about two years of blogging I have only now started paying attention to getting more subscribers. My goal is to get 5 subscribers a month. This month I got 3 but only one showed up. After taking your advice and migrating my feeds to Google, my count is only off by one Thank you!
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William McCamment
reply on February 10th, 2009 9:53 am:
5 subs a month is a good goal… Good luck!
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