Display Feed Counts In Plain Text

UPDATE: After using the plugin for 3 days. I discovered that the counts sometimes goes mad. Sometimes it shows 0 subscribers, and sometimes it returns some funny figures that do not coincide with my actual numbers. So use it at your own risk, or ..fun. Whatever.

It was a weekend. I was bored. When I get bored, my butts gets itchy and when my buts gets itchy, I look for things to customize in this blog. So I looked around to see what else I haven’t done here. I realized that I have never displayed my feed counts nor have I checked for the past 5 or 6 months since I stopped my campaign for more feed subscribers. I would have expected some increments, but…

NAH. Somehow, people seems uninterested to subscribe to this blog. The figure has remained static for so long that I have lost all confidence that it will ever increase, so what the hell. But I needed something to kill my weekend blues. so I went Googling for ways to display feed counts in text form instead of using the default chicklet.

In searching, I discovered a big conspiracy, or scandal if you prefer to call it. I found so many websites that are actually displaying false and artificially bloated figures for their feed counts. Ways to cheat on your feed counts have been long known, but the thing that surprised me was there are actually so many who are using it.

6 Ways to Cheat On Your Feed Counts.

The easiest way is of course to make your own feed count chicklet image with photoshop. This method is crude is easily detectable because the bloated figures will never change.

The second method is to display the default chicklet, but link the image to another blogger who has a high feed count. This is harder to detect as everything is actually “real”.

The third method is to use the animated chicklet, then use photoshop again to add in an extra number in front of the counts. This is by far the best method as it is almost undetectable.

The fourth method is to display the feed counts in plain text, whether by use of some codes or a plugin like what you are seeing here now but again use the id of another blogger.

Or the fifth method, add another number to the front or back of the displayed text number to show your feed counts in four or five figure.

The sixth method involves a bug in feedburner that was compromized by some geeks a while back. It has since been resolved by Google and Feedburner and it doesn’t work anymore. This was the best method as all the counts are all “legit”.

How To Detect A FeedCount Fraudster

To see the actual figures or the original feed chicklet all you have to so to type in this address in your browser.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/feedname

Change the feedname to the feed id of that blog. The feed id can be seen at your browser’s taskbar if you hover your mouse over the subscribe link. For example if you hover your mouse over my SubScribe RSS link you will see that my feedname is BlogGigs.

Why Display And Why Cheat.

Gurus have said that by displaying your feed count, you will trigger the mob mentality of your readers. Since they see so many has already subscribed, they too will want to be part of the crowd. Naturally then, you must have a high feed count, else then, you do not have the mob to trigger that mentality.

Thus, cheat.

Lets get Back To Displaying Feed Counts In Plain Text

Others might differ, but the only obvious reason for my doing so is due to my itchified butt over the weekend. Displaying the feed counts in plain text lets you have total control over how you want the figures to be displayed. If you blog hop enough, you will see many blogs are doing this in different and very creative ways.

There are 2 ways to display your Feed counts as plain text. One involves adding a bunch pf php codes in your functions php file and the other simpler way which I opted, is to use a plugin called Feedburner Circulation. You can install in via your WordPress Dashboard. More info at WordPress.org

After installing the plugin, create a new class in your stylesheet to style the way you want those figures to be displayed. My example is here is very basic but to give you a rough idea on how to write those css codes, here are mine.

.feedcount {
text-align:left;
padding:20px;
background-color:#444;
background: url('images/subscribe.png')center no-repeat;
color:#999;
font-family: Arial, san-serif;
font-weight:bold;
font-size: 25px;
border:none;
}

When you add your functions in your template files, just wrap it within this class, like this:

<div class="feedcount"><?php feedburner_circulation_text('feed_id'); ?></div>

Style yours according to your preference by changing the values in the css codes given. For example you can use a more attractive background image.

Remember that this is a php code so it must be inside the loop, which means you cannot use it with your sidebar widgets, unless it is a php widget. Even then, some have reported that it still does not work.

There are many, but for a better tutorial on how to use codes instead of the plugin, and how to style it better check out this post, Add a Custom Feedburner Count to your WordPress Blog by Three Styles.

Have some fun.