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February 19, 2008

Feedburner - Kickin It Old School

Michael Arrington

83 comments »

It’s always fun to get the monthly Feedburner check for advertising they insert into the RSS feed. The actual dollar amount is still next to nothing, but I love the fact that, even with nearly 800,000 publishers, 1.4 million managed feeds, and a $100 million payday from Google, they still haven’t automated the check writing process. Someone hand writes all of these checks every month.

By the way, there’s been a bit of a stir caused by reports yesterday that Feedburner turned off historical stats. CEO Dick Costolo said via email that it was just a bug caused by a code update, and it will be fixed shortly.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 1:59 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Forte Financial Blog

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:24 pm

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Comments

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  1. Brett

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:01 pm

    Love it. Old school business in an online world. Beautiful.

  2. dale

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:08 pm

    wow this is hard to belive!!

  3. PhilRoof

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:08 pm

    Michael, if you really don’t want anyone to know what the dollar amount of the check was, take another shot at blurring (or blacking) out the numbers.

  4. Michael Arrington

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:11 pm

    really? what do you think the amount is? looks pretty blurry to me.

  5. Andrew

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:13 pm

    6000.75 I think

  6. dale

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:13 pm

    I think it is 10,074.73?

  7. Michael Arrington

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:15 pm

    well, there you go.

  8. kow

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:16 pm

    Michael, why don’t you interview them about this? Maybe they sent only you this check handwritten, for some purpose :)

  9. Bob Barker

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:16 pm

    6274.73

  10. Andrew

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:18 pm

    As far as the whole check processing, I sure wish there was a service that would automate the process.

    Offer an API. Then just print new checks with all the info plugged in(business address, account #, address/phone/name/amount) and then mail it in the mail. Figure can charge a buck for processing(to cover printing/ink/postage), and you have instant millions.

    And if something like this exists already, feel free to let me know, since I’m looking for a service like this.

  11. Michael Arrington

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:21 pm

    Andrew - quickbooks. or 15,000 other applications.

  12. bob cobb

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:22 pm

    feedburners ad network earnings are pathetic. Such a crappy cpm. I was hoping google might help that

  13. Alaska Miller

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:23 pm

    Who’s writing the checks and who’s signing it?

  14. Andrew

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:23 pm

    those just print on checks(unless I’m missing something), I’d like something where I send the company the info, and they do all the processing(print new checks, put a stamp on it, drive it to the post office).

  15. Don Wilson

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:28 pm

    Michael, maybe you should work on your photoshop blurring skills a little more ;)

  16. nae

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:34 pm

    I’ll know i’ve made it when a monthly cheque for six grand is “next to nothing”

  17. CouchTycoon

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:35 pm

    we agonized the whole day long how to pay raised funds to our ventures. now i know;)
    i love these antique checks, like paying a private investigator.

  18. Jeff the Great

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:35 pm

    try more like 674.73….TC isn’t getting $10k for this kind of rev share. Feedburner themself proly isn’t getting $10k from ads in the TC feed.

  19. Chad

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:38 pm

    They aren’t paying out or writing too many checks….#2116

  20. evan williams

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:41 pm

    Why not use paypal? Fees too high?

  21. antje wilsch

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:43 pm

    @Alaska, looks like a woman wrote, man signed (sigh)

  22. Andy Gongea

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:43 pm

    Weeeeee!!!!

    You know Michael, that the number from the check is the most interesting part in this article. We all know the power of Techcrunch and that you have many visitors and page views. But this thing with the check is quite intriguing.

    So how much money can a RSS feed bring. That is the question

    Are going to tell us ? :))) Kiddin’

  23. bob cobb

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:43 pm

    taking payments from an ad network through paypal is the dumbest thing ever. Why cut your earnings by 2%, or whatever it is, because you dont want to wait for a check

  24. Todd

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:44 pm

    6874.73

  25. Cosmin Ghiu

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:45 pm

    lol. thanks for sharing. #19 beat me to it.

    over 800,000 publishers and only check nr. 2116? either they just switched banks (SVB) or there aren’t too many payouts to the 800K publishers! :)

  26. mike

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:45 pm

    Yeah, but TC is the biggest there is. If you’re getting only a few grand, then the folks at feedburner aren’t writing many checks at all. They only write a check when revenue hits a certain amount, right?

    I’d guess it’s in the dozens per month.

    This check that says a lot more about the feedvertising business than it says about feedburner’s internal processes.

  27. Ben Metcalfe

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:49 pm

    I’m in for the ‘guess the check figure’ game.

    Look like $1124 to me. Can’t make out the cents.

    What do I win, Mike?

  28. Ben Metcalfe

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:49 pm

    Make that $1174.00

  29. MikeT

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:49 pm

    you guys don’t understand - this is Web4.0 - a huge leap over Web2.0 (not even going into 3.0) - which is about adding a human touch to technology. This puts Feedburner on the cutting edge of the tech pogress and leaves all of us behind in the dust.

    Hats off to Feedburner - the standard we all have to follow…

  30. AnonTroll

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:50 pm

    It’s more fun to play guess the routing number and account number.

  31. Chad

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

    Michael, what was last months check #?

  32. gilltots

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

    6674.73??

  33. allen stern

    February 19th, 2008 at 2:52 pm

    Mike - why aren’t you getting it electronically? I have never received a check from them - always a nice deposit monthly.

    Of course you got a post out of it and all I get is a line item.

  34. allen stern

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:01 pm

    ok knowing what FB pays and their fill rate …. and playing with Photoshop, here is my bet on the check:

    $1,274.73

    This comes from two things:
    1. the numbers in the upper box clearly shows four digits before the cents and this is easy to follow if you take the digits in the date and move them down.
    2. In the writing of the amount, the first number has to be 3 letters leaving us only one, two, three, six.
    3. Then assuming, I am right that it’s four digits, we would need a “thousand” next followed by a number and a hundred
    4. The number before the hundred is also very short so I went with a two.
    5. If you notice, none of the numbers in the blurred out part cut below the line as well.

    Who knows if I am right but there is my guess. The other thing it could be is $10,xxx but that would be a very tight 10 before the comma in the number box.

    Columbo has left the house.

  35. Michael Arrington

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:01 pm

    allen - didn’t know that was an option.

  36. franky

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:05 pm

    Andrew,

    Looks like almost any kind of data export will be able to be converted by almost any serious accountancy agency in to an automated process.

    Here’s an offer to you: minimum 50k clients/month and I’ll do it for you at $1/client. 12 Months contract, minimum 300k cheques to be ordered.
    Hey, it’s gotta be worth it, I’m not US based, so I would have to outsource the whole darn thing again for the posting. Still I’d make a lovely cut on your Excel Spreadsheets. Checks will be shipped within 4 working days, so I have time to go show off my new hardware, paid by your company, at $tarbuck$.

    The other option? QuickBooks or 15k other apps and maybe you could invest some bucks for someone to write you the export/conversion batch to import the data in QB.

    I hope your startup/company has a more solid concept and the team more knowledge than what you just showed here. Just saying.

    Just go to the TC forums and you’ll surely find someone there who can automate the import in QB for you. ;-)

  37. allen stern

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:06 pm

    oops - actually it’s paypal but there is no fee so its all good

  38. Peter Armstrong

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:07 pm

    Michael, as someone who has been defrauded once after having had an order of cheques stolen, I’d be more concerned about the bad blurring job on the transit and account numbers on the bottom of the cheque. (I wouldn’t want any cheque I wrote to be posted on TechCrunch with only a blurring filter on my account number…)

  39. Simon

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:09 pm

    How many others see seventy four written and 73 in numbers not blurred?

  40. Simon

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:10 pm

    My bad, I come from else where ok!

  41. Steve

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:15 pm

    Definitely $6,674.73

  42. gilltots

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:15 pm

    lol @34

    “In the writing of the amount, the first number has to be 3 letters leaving us only one, two, three, six.”

    three??

  43. Steve

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:19 pm

    Allen (or Columbo),

    So if the fist word has to be 3 letters, how the hell is “three” a possibility? And you might be retarded or blind if you can’t read both the word “Six” and the number “6″ as the first digit.

    Nice try, but don’t call yourself Columbo.

  44. lawrence

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

    lol - I bet everybody became bright-eyed when they saw that check photo.

    Just show the amount, for the love of god - you have to grey it out

  45. Xavierv

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

    Maybe it is not such a good idea to publish this check. If you have +650K readers, times approx 200 posts/month, that’s a virtual 130 million feed impression.

    So I don’t know how much publishers get paid in the FB network, but FB charges $4 CPM average, a total $520 000/month of potential revenue on Techcrunch subscribers alone.

    So if you get only $1 000 or $6 000/month, that means the FB network is a rip-off, or their advertising executives are really ineffective (something I refuse to think). Or your feeds do not reach 650K readers, but merely 6500.

    I’m sure there’s an explanation for this.

  46. allen stern

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:23 pm

    #43 - three has three in it so it counts - damn i need something cold

    actually i still stand firm with my guess because i didn’t include 3 in my guess.

  47. Auditing

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:31 pm

    I thought Google hires PhDs who can at least write properly.

  48. maya

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:33 pm

    hey what ads? I read techcrunch on google reader, I don’t see any rss ads!

  49. Ahmad

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:38 pm

    Hey Micheal ,

    I think the amount isnt less than 1 USD and isnt more than 10000

    Am I right

  50. bala

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:38 pm

    i used to write checks by hand, but now every bank offers electronic check payment for free, i wonder why they are still handwriting checks….they are not saving money, instead wasting money and time!!

  51. Ahmad

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:40 pm

    I am sure 100% that its 6 thousands and some dollars

  52. Michael Arrington

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

    some of you people have way too much time on your hands.

  53. Andrew

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:48 pm

    Def starts with a Six

  54. Peter Cooper

    February 19th, 2008 at 4:00 pm

    I’m going with Steve’s guess of $6,674.73 as I tried to “figure it out” before reading any of the comments and that’s what I got. Beats doing a Suduko before bed at least.. :)

  55. David

    February 19th, 2008 at 4:01 pm

    I’m going with Bob Barker (#9) - $6,274.73

  56. User447

    February 19th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

    I’m also going with #9
    $6,274.73

  57. Flip Orley

    February 19th, 2008 at 4:52 pm

    Photoshop and smart sharpen will grant you wisdom.

  58. MikeT

    February 19th, 2008 at 4:56 pm

    @52: you should be happy they spend it on TC ;)

  59. Ed Street

    February 19th, 2008 at 4:59 pm

    Even a tech company can still give you that old time warm fuzzy feeling when they hand write you a check.

  60. iPhone Lover

    February 19th, 2008 at 5:26 pm

    All the while I thought everything is automated until I saw that funny, playcheck-like, handwritten piece of paper from Feedburner. :)

    http://www.iphone-codes.com

  61. Cynthia Brumfield

    February 19th, 2008 at 6:11 pm

    Many companies have a policy that stipulates checks or purchase orders over a certain amount (often $5,000.00 but higher if you’re talking about huge companies, such as GE) have to be signed, counter-signed or hand-written by certain company principals to mitigate losses from possible embezzlement or employee fraud. That could be the case here. My guess is that the check is for more than $5,000 and Mike is taking a justifiable strut by calling it “next to nothing.”

  62. StationStops.com

    February 19th, 2008 at 6:18 pm

    For the love of all that is holy get a copy of Quickbooks - hell Quicken for christs sakes - that is just insane!

  63. Inetgate

    February 19th, 2008 at 6:58 pm

    Is there any possibility that they are using handwriting taste font?

  64. Chris Cardinal

    February 19th, 2008 at 7:15 pm

    $6,x74.73

    It’s patently obvious the written section starts with an “S” and the number section looks remarkably like a 6 as well.

    Obviously Michael wanted to give us something to discuss, or he’d have blacked out or set the Gaussian blur a little higher. The real trick is getting the routing and account number right.

  65. Andrew Parker

    February 19th, 2008 at 7:37 pm

    That’s odd. FeedBurner pays me via PayPal… I can’t believe in 64 commentors on this post, no one else said that they’re getting their FeedBurner checks via PayPal…. makes me feel like the only one.

    Mike, did they ever offer you the opportunity to use PayPal? I, by contrast, was never offered the opportunity to receive a check, I had to use PayPal.

  66. spez

    February 19th, 2008 at 7:42 pm

    you know there is software on the internet that can decode photoshopped blurred images

    why doesnt someone use that software to decode the cheque amount?

  67. Arthur Chaparyan

    February 19th, 2008 at 8:43 pm

    I’m going to have to say $1 Bob

  68. kuldeep

    February 19th, 2008 at 11:11 pm

    Micheal, I love when keep playing with these commentors…you really put on a show…haha

  69. Sunny Kalara

    February 19th, 2008 at 11:37 pm

    The amount on the check is around $6.7k. Isn’t it interesting that the number of subscribers for TechCrunch is 677k (677,000) and the amount of check is a very similar number is pennies?

    My theory is that TechCrunch has 677,473 subscribers and they got a check for $6,774.73.

    It seems that each subscriber is worth $0.01 for RSS ads.

    I am waiting to get my $2 check. Its not a bad deal for me; once a week I give my two cents worth, thats about $1/year and at the end of the year, I get double that money! :-)

  70. Luc Dubois

    February 20th, 2008 at 1:41 am

    I hate to interrupt the guessing game, but how about this method of payment: Feedburner calculates all payment fees on their computers, sends the data electronically to their bank, who then transfers the appropriate amount into each clients bank account (no matter what bank this account is in)? That’s how it’s done over here in Europe… I haven’t seen or used a cheque since… what?… 1980.

  71. Josh

    February 20th, 2008 at 1:50 am

    My superhuman skills tell me…

    6074.73

    so, roughly over a thousand bucks per hundred thousand subscribers.

    my guess this is an internal policy at feedburner to make their biggest customers feel connected to the company in a mom and pop way.

  72. Kevin H

    February 20th, 2008 at 3:39 am

    Hey, be thankful you’re getting paid.

    Their new owners did some advertising with us a few months back and we’re still waiting … maybe it upset them that we offer PayPal as a payment option :)

  73. John

    February 20th, 2008 at 3:53 am

    @Allen stern
    Will you stop linking to your feed

  74. CanCar

    February 20th, 2008 at 5:45 am

    In the old school business is where we really learned. Checks will be shipped within 4 working days, so I have time to go show off my new hardware, paid by your company, at starbucks.

    My prediction: 6, 174.73

  75. rubu

    February 20th, 2008 at 5:49 am

    The real trick is getting the routing and account number right.

  76. Neville Hobson

    February 20th, 2008 at 7:26 am

    I get my FB ad payments by PayPal. Always have because that’s the option I set up in my FB account. Who on earth wants to deal with bits of paper sent in the post?

    And my guess re the amount in the cheque above - it’s six thousand something. The first word is definitely ’six’ and the blurred number at right looks like it has a comma after the first digit.

    Just a tad more than I receive each month, usually sufficient for a beer or three :)

  77. Fabian Schonholz

    February 20th, 2008 at 8:02 am

    I would love to get $6K/month from my blog …. wait … ohhhh!!! Yeah!!! I have to set up Feedburner eh??

    :D :D :D

  78. Gabe

    February 20th, 2008 at 9:18 am

    Is this really a discussion?

  79. Unblurer

    February 20th, 2008 at 10:02 am

    http://www.hackszine.com/blog/.....lurre.html

  80. techguy

    February 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 am

    If the amount of the check is the interesting part of this story you are all missing the most important part. The only ads I remember seeing in my TechCrunch feed are ads for CrunchGear. So, how much of this payment is offset by the cost of CrunchGear ads?

  81. See-ming Lee

    February 27th, 2008 at 10:55 am

    Because humans are often a whole lot cheaper then technology integration

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