Why I am not crazy about the FeedBurner-Google deal…

I love FeedBurner. I like Google. But there is one reason (outside of all of the privacy concerns) as to why I am not that excited about FeedBurner joining the Google camp.

Much has been written about the excitement of this deal because there is a belief that AdSense will be offered inside your feed allowing you to maximize your earnings.

CenterNetworks is part of the FeedBurner Ad Network (FAN) and when I joined I was very excited. Still am very excited. The CPMs that FB gets are just amazing. 15-60x more than most ad networks can seem to get.  And the best part, FB actually shares what the total they receive is. FeedBurner has what I call classy advertisements from top of the line companies and while they can't fill 100% of the time, what they do fill is excellent.

Unlike Google which hides this information so as to make sure they can grab as much as possible while sharing the crumbs with the publishers.

While I expect FAN to continue for a while, eventually I am certain the AdWords/AdSense programs will be the advertising option for feeds. There goes my nice CPMs, there goes the transparency. Will Google be able to fill more than FAN can/did? Yep. Certainly can. But I am sure the earnings opportunities will be lower and it's back to the scraps.

I am in the process of attempting to get clarification from FeedBurner about the ad network and will report back when I hear something.