Last night, I was adding dozens of new feeds into my FeedDemon and found myself deleting a couple old ones too. Those are blogs which I’ve subscribed to for months now but seems like a ghost town already.

If you got a Feedburner chicklet that displays your RSS count, you’d see that number dwindle because of any of these reasons:

• Erratic post schedules. One week, you’re on a roll; then, the following week, you got one two-liner post. (You might be mistaken for #2)
• You stop blogging or updating your blog for weeks on end. If your subscribers think the blog is dead, they’d unsubscribe right away. If you’re on a blog leave or sabbatical, it would be good to leave a note for such in your last entry so people would know and not expect any new updates soon.
• You switched from full feeds to summary feeds. Some people tell me that they don’t bother subscribing to feeds if it’s just a summary feed. So, if your subscriber’s already enjoying your full feed, don’t wish them away by switching to summary feeds (unless you have a really, really compelling reason to do so OR if you have some kick-ass content to serve).
• You turned pink. I don’t know but one day, you just felt like posting all personal stuff and pictures of you and your significant other (or others) like there’s no tomorrow. And it went on for weeks and weeks. Aw, it’s sweet but I don’t think your subscribers will like a Pinoy Big Blogger issue for the next 45 days.
• You switched programming. And I thought you were covering tech? Why am I reading all babes and boobs now? (Well, some might not really unsubscribe but may move your feed to another channel group. )

A nice Feedburner chicklet number usually attracts more subscribers as the perception that you are widely read adds to the convincing powers of your blog. Then again, if you think your target audience aren’t that cool with feeds, why not try email subscriptions? (Feedburner has one.)

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