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How Do Firefox Live Bookmarks and Feedburner Work?

FeedburnerI don’t know about you, but the Feedburner subscriber counts fluctuate all over the place in a period of a week. As you can see in the top left hand side of my sidebar, my counter never stays the same 2 days in a row, and I just can’t figure out why.

Normally, I try and post everyday. When I do, my counter climbs as I make more posts, and this trend continues per day. However, the day when I don’t post, the subscribership levels appear to plummet (sometimes by upto 30 subscribers). But I just don’t understand why. When a person subscribers to your feed, I assume (if they use Firefox Live Bookmarks), that they click on the RSS icon and that they add the site to their favourites. With feedreaders like Bloglines, then either use a chicklet or add the site directly to the programs. How is it then, that the number of Firefox Live Bookmarkers changes so rapidly. I find it hard to believe that people take the time to unsubscribe to my feed, and then resubscribe a few days later when I make another post. Someone please explain this to me!

On another note, I’ve noticed that its not just my subscribership levels that have dropped:

  • Yesterday Yaro Starak’s blog dropped from 1800 to 900.
  • Burt’s blog dropped from 117 to 70.
  • Darren Rowse’s dropped from 8500 to 7500.
  • Blogtrepreneur jumped from 85 to 56 in a matter of days!

Now while these figures might not be statistically 100% perfect, they do show some slight correlations. Maybe it is because of the weekend period that people unsubscribe from certain blogs, or maybe Firefox Live Bookmarks is working in a way that I’ve not completely worked out yet. Either way, fluctuation is occurring and I want to get to the bottom of it!

On another note, I did manage to hit my subscribership level of 85 on Friday so that was very pleasing. Unfortunately it seems that I need to constantly post to maintain unique visitors and normal traffic levels, otherwise these figures too seem to plummet. However, I don’t mind at all writing, as Im constantly learning new things about the blogosphere and about other people and their habits.

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