CNN’s RSS Feeds Are Hosted By Google – Why FeedBurner Is Worth A Look

FeedBurner — Google’s free RSS hosting service — is pretty slick. You get traffic stats, share buttons, and Ad-Sense integration for the normal Google price of nothing. It’s great for small bloggers (like me) and other small publishers who don’t have the time or resources to do these things on their own, but what about larger publishers?

It appears that CNN is using Google’s service (check out http://www.mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=mx%3arss.cnn.com where rss.cnn.com resolves to Google servers).  CNN is not a small blog or small publisher, so what gives?

At some point, it’s just not cost effective, on any level, to build things yourself.  Think about the nicest houses — do they have custom rolled copper pipes or hand-hewn wall studs?  Of course not.  There’s no value to extra effort invested in these commodities.  RSS has become another commodity.

The real value is in the tactile components — the Venetian plaster walls and his and her vanities.  That’s where CNN has decided to spend its time.  CNN has taken RSS out of the equation, just like how they use AccuWeather for weather data instead of gathering their own.

This is an important lesson when running your own online business, because there’s always the option of building things from scratch.  Should you build your own Exchange server or use an external host?  What about Gmail for business?  Should you create your own comment module or use a service like JS-Kit’s ECHO?  Should you host your own feeds?  It all depends on what your business is trying to do, and that’s for you to decide.

But remember CNN — they decided that managing their RSS in-house was too much.  Don’t try to do too much.