Google shutters Feedburner Ad Network in favor of AdSense (update)

Written on August 13, 2008 – 3:24 pm
Robin Wauters, Next web enthusiast & Plugg organizer

The folks over at the Search Engine Roundtable have noticed a post by Google employee Matt on the Feedburner Help Group confirming that the FeedBurner Ad Network (FAN) has effectively been shut down.

UPDATE (15 August): Google seems to have opened up AdSense for Feeds for all, according to Google Operating System.

This is a quick note to confirm that FeedBurner’s former, independent ad network, FeedBurner Ad Network (aka “FAN”), is officially closed. No new applications for FAN publishers are being accepted and we expect the broad variety of options provided through AdSense (including the new AdSense for Feeds product, powered with FeedBurner feeds) will give publishers valuable new revenue-earning potential.

While this is hardly an unexpected and logical decision, I’m left wondering if these publishers are actually in the know, since the FeedBurner blog post announcing integration of Google AdSense for Feeds didn’t mention an actual shutdown of FAN. I’m also not that sure if those publishers really see AdSense for Feeds as a viable alternative? For Allen Stern of CenterNetworks, the switch proved to be disappointing (video).

FeedBurner remains one of the strongholders of RSS feed management, even if we showed how the numbers of subscribers they report can be easily manipulated. Good alternatives for monetizing RSS feeds include Yahoo, Pheedo and Text Link Ads. Feedster, on the other hand, died some time ago.

(Thanks to Marjolein Hoekstra for the hat tip)

I hope you like that post!

The Next Web Blog covers start-up news from all over the world (not just the Valley), exciting new technologies and inspiring entrepreneurs. If you're new here, you may want to read our 'About' page and subscribe to our RSS feed.

Do you have a start-up that we should write about? Contact us! Thanks for visiting and hope you come back again!

About the author: Robin Wauters is a Belgium-based social media consultant, startup advisor, blogger, entrepreneur, Twitter fanatic, conference organizer and allround web addict. Between trying out just about every new web application that gets in his sight, he advises local startups like ContactOffice, Oxynade and Yuntaa. And when he's not busy trying to keep tabs with what's going on in the virtualization & cloud computing industry as managing editor of Virtualization.com, he's probably working on the organization of Plugg, an annual celebration of European web entrepreneurship.

Post that could be related to this post:

AdSense for feeds: no more Feedflare hacks?

Feedburner has just announced that they will start offering AdSense to a small group of selected publishers. This will mean you will be able to show ads in your feeds directly. We already offer this...

Google AdSense: No More Referral Fees!

Do you refer a lot of people to Google Adsense and are you NOT based in North America, Latin America, or Japan? Then you will be making a lot less money starting February. Since about a...

Google AdSense Down

Yesterday we reported that Yahoo! is thinking about partnering with AOL and using Google's Adsense program instead of its own to boost revenue. It is ironic that today Google AdSense is down with a "The Google AdSense...

2 comments to “Google shutters Feedburner Ad Network in favor of AdSense (update)”

By http://technically-speaking-radio.blogspot.com/ on Aug 15, 2008

Flash: This just in….Google adsense is migrating Feedburner feeds: http://technically-speaking-ra.....feeds.html

[Reply]
By Bart Shutters on Oct 24, 2008

This is a quick note to confirm that FeedBurner’s former, independent ad network, FeedBurner Ad Network (aka “FAN”), is officially closed. No new applications for FAN publishers are being accepted and we expect the broad variety of options provided through AdSense (including the new AdSense for Feeds product, powered with FeedBurner feeds) will give publishers valuable new revenue-earning potential.

http://www.sunshutters.nl

[Reply]

The Next Web