More in a few minutes…
Update and Disclaimer:
Well, more than a few minutes later thanks to Blogger… In any event, congrats to the FeedBurner team on their funding. And what a slew of investors they now have. During the Bubble, I used to look at average-sized funding rounds that included new VC investors as a sign of a lack of an appetite for the business amongst the original VCs; back then it was more common for ten VCs to independently fund the same concept. Could cooperative venture funding (vs. starving each other out) represent Funding 2.0, to go along with Web 2.0, Where 2.0 and all the other 2.x meme’s we’re likely to invent? Hmm…
The announcement includes some interesting tidbits, including additional confirmation of FeedBurner’s pending Premium and Feed advertising services. Also of note is the fact that they are currently servicing 40K active Feeds. Assuming half of all blogs are active (8MM->4MM) and 40% of blogs have Feeds (4MM->1.6MM), FeedBurner has a 2.5% penetration rate… enough to prove initial market acceptance… and show a lot of growth potential.
The release mentions “bulk feed management services”, directly or indirectly, on more than one occasion. In my opinion, the nature of these relationships will be very telling of FeedBurner’s long-term viability as a standalone business. More on that another time.