It’s the 19th of September and still no follow-up to the Feedster August Top 500 list. When I remarked at the end of August that in a few days we’d be seeing a new list, Feedster CEO, Scott Rafer, was quick to show up in the comments area to correct me:

Our list iterations will come out mid-month, as the first one did, not at the first of the month. We’ll get into a predictable and disclosed rhythm as soon as we can.

Well, that rhythm better mean some time this week, Scott, because the middle of the month is quickly passing.

(as if Feedster doesn’t already realize this)

Rather than focusing on the September Top 500 though — which who really cares anyway if they miss the month except those who didn’t make the first list maybe (I’m sure some would rather see them get the issues with the list sorted out rather than see them issue a new top 500 list monthly) — instead I wish they would fix their icon next to post upload system.

Here are the steps I’ve futilely tried to make this work. Login to their myfeedster system and “edit claimed feeds.”

Note the broken image link in the screenshot above.

The message indicates that resizing will occur if the image is not the correct size. I used a JPG image.

The error message is about as useful as most error messages: “It is likely it was not uploaded correctly.” LOL! Ya think?

I emailed them about this issue roughly a month ago and never heard back. I also mentioned the issue in a post which Mr. Rafer commented on and still never got any resolve.

Perhaps by including screenshots of the issue in this post I can get somebody over there at Feedster to pretty please with strawberry on top look at the issue and actually help me resolve this? I used to have an icon, but no matter what I do I can’t get the icon to show any more next to my claimed feed for this blog. It shows two different versions of claimed feed for the same feed (with and without the third level “www”), so maybe that has something to do with the issue?

More likely, there is a bug in their file upload code and/or resizing library. Time to check GD or imagemagick or whatever library they are using on the server.

Here’s the icon I want included next (and yes, I’ve tried repeatedly to upload this image): . You’ll note that the dimensions for this image are 59 x 68. I did try resizing this image to fit their dimensions of 60 x 40 and that still wouldn’t upload successfully.

If given the choice between a Top 500 list in September or fixing bugs like this, I’ll choose fixing issue like this every time.

Some have complained that one of Technorati’s biggest faults is how it delves into new features, bells and whistles and yet their single most important feature: search speed, seems to languish in quicksand. I sure hope Feedster isn’t going down this perilous path.

Whoever over there at Feedster that can make this happen, please, help me. Again, I emailed the issue and got nowhere. My office phone number is listed on my picture on the home page and yes, it works. Feel free to call if you want so we can resolve this issue. Heck, I realize you are a free service and support is not guaranteed so give me FTP access to your server where this program is running and I can probably fix it in less time than it took me to make this post.

Feedster had no problem calling me when I signed up for their Media Network but when I found out that the only way to participate was for us to redirect our RSS feeds through them, I said no thanks. They still do not notify anywhere on their page that that’s the deal. You have to fax them signed paperwork before you get this important information from their tech people. That’s backwards disclosure in my book.

Though this post might sound like I’m angry with Feedster, I’m actually not. I just wish they’d change a few things (like making an API for their Media Network or use code insertion like Adsense and YPN) and sincerely hope that since my email failed to get their attention on this icon next to feed bug/issue, maybe this post will be more successful.

If this doesn’t work, should I take out an ad on their Media Network?

If any readers have any special hints to fix this icon next to claimed feed issue, of course, that information would also be greatly appreciated.

Update 9/20/2005 3:07pm PST: Sheldon from Feedster politely and professionally hooked me up by fixing the image in the Feedster database for me. Sheldon didn’t mention if the entire system was fixed or not though, but if you run into the same problem you might want to email him directly to get fixed up. Also, please note Randy’s comment below that Feedster already said (before I made this post) that they are not going to have a September Top 500 list and that they will be back in October.

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