Getting Burned by FeedBurner

Over the past few months, I've been getting frustrated with how long it takes my blog posts to show up in RSS readers. So it was reassuring to read this post from Steve Gillmor (via Dave Winer) expressing much the same frustration with FeedBurner, the service so many bloggers and podcasters use to create RSS feeds for their content. Apparently, this is a problem many are experiencing.

As an example, after posting something here at FRT, it often takes eight hours to show up on my Google Reader. That's not a big deal to me, as I don't really post anything here that has any "breaking news" urgency or that I want people to read quickly. And frankly, I don't know how many people even subscribe to this via RSS. (I know it's very few.)

But it's a huge deal to me when it affects how quickly people get my posts from Bless You Boys in their RSS readers. I work hard to post stuff on the Detroit Tigers as soon as it happens, and if people choose to read that content via RSS, but aren't getting it until hours after it's been posted, that's not working for me. Fortunately, SB Nation has set up its own RSS feeds for its sites, so a slow turnaround isn't much of a problem anymore.

However, there's still a major drag for anything I post here. Yesterday was a rare (very rare in recent years) three-post day at FRT. And it once again took hours for those posts to sync up with Google Reader. I'm not sure that matters to those who normally read this blog (and I thank you for doing so, by the way), but it kind of chaps my ass.

So I wonder if there are any alternatives? Or perhaps it's an issue with Blogger. Or maybe I shouldn't complain, as FeedBurner is a free service, and I get what I pay for. However, now that FB is now a Google property, I think a lot more is expected.

I'll have to post an update as to when this actually posts to RSS.