I humbly continue to be astounded by the rate at which my RSS subscriber base is growing. At just 200 in December, and around 350 just 30 days ago, we've rocketed through the next marks, hitting 500 subscribers just Monday, and a whopping 606, according to FeedBurner, as of today - showing 85% growth in the last month alone!

But then I started thinking. It's all my fault. It's not necessarily due to good content, or scoops, or anything like that... as much as I'd like it to be... it's because as I've gravitated toward talking more and more about RSS readers, RSS distributors and link blog aggregators, I've attracted the people most likely to be comfortable with RSS, and want to know more about RSS, and who are most likely to be no more than 2 clicks away at any time from adding yet more feeds to their undoubtedly overflowing reader software.

It's essentially a byproduct of gaining a focused audience who is in line with one of the metrics by with this blog is measured. While total page views are increasing, due to the niche focus we've had here of late, that number is growing even more. Every time we talk about AssetBar, FeedBurner, FriendFeed, LinkRiver, ReadBurner, RSSMeme, or Shared Reader, we're only offering an article as the next drug hit for RSS addicts.

So I came to the conclusion that this otherwise impressive spike is no more valuable than saying the ice cream man does better business when the sun is shining, or that if I made this blog all about my beagle, I just might get a lot of dog lovers here. While I can get all excited about plowing through 500 and 600 like a hot knife through butter, it's silly to do so. Now, the hard part will be keeping on topic and keeping my new RSS converts entertained.

A few years ago, reaching the greatest number of people with news, in the quickest amount of time, would seemingly be an easy task. Get a list of people to call, prioritize, and then start dialing, starting with the most important, and eventually, reaching the last person on the list, before going back to the top of the list and calling those who didn't pick up. And if you didn't want to talk to the person face to face, you could type out a letter and send it out, leaving the time between sending and receiving it in the hands of the postal service.

For news like that we posted last night, announcing a near-term addition to the family, this pre-2008 process could take hours, and eventually seep into days.

Thank goodness those times are behind us. Last night, I essentially took 4 ways to get the news out. I first posted it here, on louisgray.com, then followed on by posting the news to FriendFeed and Twitter. When I'd hit all the instant routes, I then crawled through my address book, and sent out an e-mail to those who likely wouldn't be at any of the online media. Sure enough, even as I was creating the e-mail, I started to get comments flowing into my in box, as those RSS-enabled subscribers wished us well.

All told, I sent the e-mail to 57 people, and got 22 replies, for about a 40% hit rate. The blog did just as well, with 24 comments (so far), and FriendFeed surprised me, with a solid 15 responses. Twitter was the lagger, with 8 replies. In aggregate, we got about 70 friendly notes of congratulations, and after a few quick calls to my grandparents, who aren't as Web connected, I think we got just about everybody, and it was a lot easier than getting a crick in my neck after a telephone marathon.

As for why I sent the notes out in so many places to so many folks, as I reminded my wife, I majored in "Mass" Communications, not "Minor" Communications, so that's the way we do things around here.

Taking a break from our tech-focused early adopter RSS-oriented lovefest, we thought we'd share with you the biggest news we've kept under wraps just about four months now.

This summer, a pair of entrepreneurs have planned for the near-simultaneous release of two startups, which if they meet their full potential after incubating for a few decades, could go public.

Having gained access to the entrepreneurs' private vault, I can only now release these photos, the first of which was captured this afternoon at a top-secret Silicon Valley facility.


One of our two from this afternoon, in full glory...
And since we couldn't fit both of the business plans on a single scan at this stage in their incubation, I can show that the startup is not alone.


Both our babies, from December, at 10 weeks along...
So yes, all tech geekiness aside, we're excited to finally take the cover off this secret. My wife and I are now 18 weeks along, pregnant with twins, our first (and second). If this were a single birth, we'd be forecast to deliver on July 21st of 2008, but as is common, the due date will likely creep into early July or late June.

And in the big news of the day, we can confirm that we are expecting one girl, and one boy - gaining us both genders with one fell swoop. Pretty dang exciting. 2008 has already started out a big year for louisgray.com, and now, as you know also, 2008 will be an even bigger year for our household, as we learn to make the transition from a fledgling two-person startup (plus an 18-year-old dog), to a corporation.

In the world of blogging, feedback can be widely and quickly disseminated, and in a modern version of the kid's game "Telephone", a message that gets passed around can take on new meaning. That's why companies that step up before a rumor gets out of control, and transparently talk to their users, have an innate advantage over those that let the story keep rolling.

As I said this Sunday, companies that listen to their users will win. We saw a fantastic example of this today, when FeedBurner, after I noted a much-liked feature had gone missing, commented on my blog that the missing all-time statistics was not a nefarious move by their new Google overlords, but instead, simply a bug. (See: Steve Olechowski's comment)


My All-Time Stats are Back!
It was only yesterday, after seeing FeedBurner's silence on their company blog, and letting user complaints sit for a few days over the weekend, I had asked, "What's the deal, FeedBurner?"

And my questioning of their intent with the missing features had far-reaching echoes, from Mashable (Google Nixes FeedBurner’s “All Time” Stats) to Search Engine Journal (Feedburner Takes Off All-Time Stats Without Notice?), HipMojo (Web 2.0 Free Gravy Train Stopping, Abruptly), Web Log Tools Connection (FeedBurner: No more all time feed stats), Search Engine Land and even TechCrunch, who got a note from FeedBurner's CEO saying it was just a bug.

It was interesting to see how many people immediately assumed Google must be at fault. While I certainly was curious as to the reason behind the change, and saw it as running contrary to Google and FeedBurner's stated mission, I didn't outright blame Google - unless you think I did. It just seemed like a well-liked feature was taken away with no good reasoning.

But in just over 24 hours, what did we get? We got an answer, as poor Steve Olechowski had to go from blog to blog letting people know it was being fixed, and by this evening, I saw it fixed myself. There's no evil Google plan to see here, guys. Just some technology that didn't do what it was supposed to. That's why those who were in less of a rush to blame the Internet giant, like Steven Hodson of WinExtra, ask, was it "another rush to publish a story?"

So, thanks to FeedBurner for restoring the capability, and for transparently responding to its users, and to bloggers interested. It definitely shows the FeedBurner community values their service!