Google AdSense in Feedburner

Who publishes feeds?

Most of the biggest names on the web offer content feeds including Technically Speaking Radio (including a podcast!), USATODAY.com, BBC News Headlines, and many more. Google publishes feeds as a part of their services; for example, you can get a feed of new items for any search you make in Google News. In addition, hundreds of thousands of bloggers, podcasters, and videobloggers publish feeds to keep themselves better connected to their readers, listeners, admirers, and critics. Apple, through its iTunes Music Store, offers tens of thousands of audio and video podcasts for download, each of which is powered by a feed.

How do I read feeds?

If you want to browse and subscribe to feeds, you have many choices. Today, there are more than 2,000 different ways to read your feed reading. Fancy people call these ways "news aggregators" (for text, mostly) or "podcatchers" (for podcasts). Additionally, there are readers that work exclusively on mobile devices like PDAs.

Some require a small purchase price but are tops for ease-of-use and ship with dozens of feeds pre-loaded so you can explore the feed "universe" right away. Free readers are available as well; a search for "Feed reader" or "Feed aggregator" at popular search sites will yield many results. A handful of popular feed readers are listed at the bottom of this page.

A typical interface for a feed reader will display your feeds and the number of new (unread) entries within each of those feeds. You can also organize your feeds into categories and even clip and save your favorite entries (with certain applications).

If you prefer, you can use an online, web-based service to track and manage feeds. Online services give you the advantage of being able to access your feed updates anywhere you can find a web browser. Also, upgrades and new features are added automatically.

Show me what a typical feed reader looks like.

How can I publish my own feeds?

f you are using a popular blogging platform or publishing tool like TypePad, Wordpress, or Blogger, you likely publish a feed automatically. Even other non-blogging sites like social photo-sharing service Flickr offer feeds of content you produce that others can retrieve. There are also tools on the market that can help transform traditional web content into the right format for distribution.

FeedBurner's services allow publishers who already have a feed to improve their understanding of and relationship with their audience. Once you have a working feed, run it through FeedBurner and realize a whole new set of benefits.

Learn more about FeedBurner's services for blogs, podcasts and commercial publications.

And finally, some technical backstory...

The new method for easily distributing online content is often called a web feed and the technical format that makes it possible is called RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, and/or Rockdale, Sandow, and Southern (Railroad) if you trust the good folks at AcronymFinder.com. RSS is based on XML, a widely used standard for textual information exchange between applications on the Internet. RSS feeds can be viewed as plain text files, but they're really designed for computer-to-computer communication.

We should point out that RSS is just one standard for expressing feeds as XML. Another well-known choice is Atom. Both formats have their boosters, and it doesn't appear that consolidation toward a single standard is imminent. However, most feed subscribers simply want fresh content and don't care at all about the underlying protocol. (FeedBurner helps publishers avoid this quandary with our SmartFeed service, which makes any feed format readable on any subscriber device.)

Resources:

Feed-Related Backgrounders

The history of Feedburner Ads

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

FeedBurner Ad Network (FAN) was Feedburner's first attempt to place ads into feeds.

What did this mean to publishers?

That meant you get the best of both worlds: (1) a dedicated Google sales force that knows how and why to sell onto your content, with the added revenue that full back-fill coverage provides.

(2) with AdSense, you'll know that your back-filled ads are using the strongest contextual ad engine, ensuring the most relevant and profitable ads are delivered to your subscribers. And yes, ads are also sold via Google's AdWords program.

Requirements

For publishers who are not yet placing ads in their feeds, any publisher who meets the requirements to join the AdSense program will also be able to use AdSense for feeds. You will be able to manage your feed ad units directly from AdSense Setup tab, and track performance right on the AdSense Report tab. You can slice, dice, mix, or mash your tracking across feed units and content units, or keep them totally separate. You're in control. You can still control the frequency and rules around when ads appear in your feeds, without having to mess with templates on your content management system.

Steps for setting up Adsense for feeds

(1) You will need to sign up for AdSense if you haven't already.

(2) You will want to set up your AdSense channels for "placement targeting" in order to make sure that advertisers can target your syndicated content specifically. As a publisher, you will remain be in control of the campaigns that are targeted at your feed by harnessing the power of Ad Review Center.

What is a feed?

Think of "Feeds" as your good old fashion newspaper boy....but faster.

Do you remember back in the day, your newspaper boy...er, person....would ride his bike down your block delivering the morning paper to all of the neighbors doors? Well, thats exactly what feeds do. Except feeds have fancy schmancy names like RSS, ATOM, widgets and XML, etc.

Feeds allow websites to quickly deliver information directly to those who want to read it. You can subscribe to a certain feed (the same way you'd do a newspaper subscription) or unsubscribe to a feed (the same way you'd do a newspaper subscription) . You can have the feed of your favorite news authority delivered to you weekly, daily, as news happens, etc.

Where would a feed be delivered to?

Just like a newspaper in physical space, you can have a feed delivered to just about anywhere in virtual space. You can have your feed delivered to your web browser, email inbox or news reader. Feeds permit subscription to regular updates, delivered automatically via a web portal, news reader, or in some cases good old email. You can even have a feed delivered to a mobile devices, and other bite-sized technologies that make it possible to display blogs, podcasts, and major news/sports/weather/whatever headlines just about anywhere.

I'm sold! How does one subscribe to a feed?

You may recognize the universal feed icon or these "chicklets" from your favorite websites, blogs, and podcasts. These icons represent content in any format - text, audio or video - to which you can subscribe and read/watch/listen using a feed reader. What's that?

Feedburner

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown

About FeedBurner

Began in 2004, FeedBurner is the leading provider of media distribution and audience engagement services for blogs and RSS feeds. Our Web-based tools help bloggers, podcasters and commercial publishers promote, deliver and profit from their content on the Web.

FeedBurner also offers the largest feed and blog advertising network that brings together an unprecedented caliber of content aggregated from the world’s most recognized media companies (e.g. Wall Street Journal Online, Wired News, Ziff Davis), A-list bloggers and blog networks and individual publishers from around the world.

I Like My Feed. Why Would I Want to Set Fire to It?

If you long for creative ways to attract an audience, see where your content goes once you publish it and generally add a lot more value to your feed, then "feedburning" is for you.

Show Me How to Burn a Feed

Watch a short movie (3:14, 4.6 MB, no audio)

I'm Sold! Let's Get Started

Check out our services for Blogs, Podcasts, and Commercial Publications.

Fast Facts and Stats

According to Nielsen/NetRatings, FeedBurner is growing faster than MySpace and Digg with 385% traffic growth.
Total feeds: 1,924,370
Number of publishers: 1,084,096
Number of podcast and videocast feeds: 249,728
Number of subscribers across all FeedBurner feeds: Too many to fit on this page!
Percent of FeedBurner employees using Macs: 39%, PCs: 58%, Other: 3%.
Number of made-up words on this site: 4

Investors

FeedBurner is funded by Mobius Venture Capital, Portage Venture Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Union Square Ventures.