Blogicito by email

Mmm. La Gringa's Blogicito, so good with the morning coffee!

About 130 people have subscribe to the Blogicito's daily email updates. (Whoopee! I like that.) For those who don't know, FeedBurner offers a service where you can receive a daily (or almost daily) email containing the Blogicito's newest entry. The layout looks pretty much the way it does on the blog site, including the photos. It is a good way for readers to keep up without having to remember to visit the website every day.

I signed up for the service myself when I first implemented it, just to be sure that it worked properly and that my subscribers weren't going to be spammed. It did work beautifully and there was no spam. It was 99.9% reliable until about a month or two ago.


Oh! But then there were some problems...

FeedBurner had some internal problems and some of the articles were not sent out and others were sent out with long delays. They have since corrected that problem, but now a new problem has developed.

Starting a few weeks ago, Google email (Gmail) has been putting the FeedBurner Blogicito emails in the Spam Folder. Very strange, considering that Google owns FeedBurner! I've been in contact with FeedBurner and they hope to work out the problem with Google soon.

By the way, FeedBurner's customer support is THE most excellent I have ever encountered for any free internet service. Responses come within hours or even minutes from a real live human being who has actually read your email and comprehended what your problem is! Unheard of from Gmail or Yahoo, that's for sure! Despite these recent problems, I highly recommend FeedBurner for blog authors.

Anyway, if you are a subscriber and are having a problem receiving the FeedBurner email, there are a couple of things that might help:

1) Put my email address in your personal contacts if it is not already there (la.gringas.blog at gmail.com − changing the "at" to @). This is because the emails are shown as coming from my email address rather than FeedBurner's. (You don't really think that I get up at 5 a.m. everyday to send them, do you? ;-D)

2) Mark the email as "Not Spam", though this hasn't worked for me with Gmail.

3) Contact your email service provider to let them know that these emails aren't Spam.


Missed anything?

If you think that you may have missed some articles, an easy way to find out is to go to the Blogicito, page down a few times to get to "La Gringa's archives" in the right hand sidebar and open the April and March folders (one at a time). You'll see a drop down list of all of the articles. If you see one that you missed, just click the title and the article will open.

Sorry if you have experienced any problems and hopefully the situation will be corrected soon.


Didn't get your subscription?

While I'm on the subject of the FeedBurner emails, I'll also mention that when subscribing (click the "Get the Blogicito by email" link in the right hand sidebar under "Subscribe to La Gringa"), you will receive a verification email from confirmations@emailenfuego.net.

You have to click the link in the email in order to activate your subscription and begin receiving the emails. Over time, I've noticed several people who have subscribed, but never activated their subscription, probably due to the fact that they didn't recognize "emailenfuego" and deleted the confirmation message thinking it was spam.

This is called a double opt-in method and is used to prevent spammers from using FeedBurner's services to spam a bunch of email addresses that they have entered without the person's permission. It is an extra step for you, but a good thing in the long run.


Change your mind?

If you decide that you no longer want to receive the Blogicito by email (boohoo!), unsubscribing is simple. Just click on the "unsubscribe now" link at the bottom of the email and that is that. No more La Gringa's Blogicito in your inbox. Please don't mark it as spam as that can cause problems for other Blogicito readers. Just unsubscribe; it's quick and easy.

The email also includes a link by which you can switch your subscription to a feedreader such as GoogleReader or Bloglines or your Yahoo or Google homepage, just to name a few.


Don't forget to comment

And finally, if you are an email reader and would like to comment on an article, just click the article title in the email and it will take you to that article on the Blogicito. Page down to the bottom of the article and click on "Leave a comment." La Gringa always looks forward to hearing from you. :-)


Would you let me know if you are a subscriber who has noticed my FeedBurner emails going into your spam folder and which mail system you use?