A few minutes ago David Smith, Mr. FeedWrangler emerged after nearly 24 hours, rebooted his personal Wrangle and our RSS service is now back in operation. It seems David was out in the wild at his family’s cabin and had no cellular reception. As a result he had no idea the server was down, nor that the twittersphere was alive with conjecture. I’m pleased and I am more than delighted to have my FeedWrangler back…..but.
Until yesterday I didn’t know that FeedWrangler was literally a one-man band. I knew it was small but I assumed there would be one or two co-workers at least. Many users, I know, rely entirely on this (normally) excellent service and need reliability. I, for one, would be prepared to pay a few dollars a more every year to ensure that there is some sort of backup. Others, who actually rely on the RSS newsfeed for their livelihood, will have even more incentive to pay for a problem-free service.
Perhaps something good will come of this. We all benefit from experience. I am sticking with FeedWrangler although, having learned my lesson, I will be making regular backups of the feed details.
Welcome back, David.