One month ago I wrote an open letter to Google/Feedburner suggesting that it might be time to add some more features to Feedburner – particularly the ability to customize subject lines of those subscribing to a feed via RSS.
It seems that they’ve been hard at work on that very feature.
Today I logged into my Feedburner account and noticed this in the ‘Email Branding’ area.
Yep – it’s the feature we’ve been waiting for! All you need to do now is add the tag ${latestItemTitle} into the subject line and it looks like you’re set to have new subject lines on each email sent.
There’s no official word on this new feature yet from Feedburner.
Ironically it was only a few hours ago that I emailed a few questions to Feedburner who have agreed to an interview here on ProBlogger. Expect to hear more from Feedburner in the coming few days – hopefully this is a sign of things to come as they take Feedburner to the next level!
Thanks for listening Feedburner.
A hat tip to Carrie who emailed me about this new feature – nice pick up!
About Darren Rowse
My name is Darren Rowse and I’m a full time Blogger making a living from blogs like 
Nice, can’t wait to start using the new features.
official post with more details on other ways to use the feature just went up:
http://adsenseforfeeds.blogspot.com/2009/07/happiness-is-more-subject-in-your.html
Great news. Good to see that they’ve finally improved.
This is awesome! Now, readers would be able to archieve the emails and look for them easily!
Thanks Darren – please keep asking for more user-friendly features!!
This will come in handy! :D
Darren,
excellent suggestion! I just changed my feedburner settings.
Thanks for sharing…. this is really great !
Thanks Darren! While I was poking around, I noticed that I could set the timezone and time of day for delivery, so I changed that too.
Thanks for sharing!
Well, I wrote them too, but was spurned. But now redeemed, via you. (Thanks.)
Thanks for the tip! I’ve been hoping that Feedburner would do this.
Yes! I just went in and changed my as soon as I saw this. I think they did a really great job with this change, including letting you customize how it handles multiple posts in one email. Way to go Google/Feedburner!
Thanks for getting it chainged and pointing that out. Just changed my subject to “Postname – Blogname”.
Bye, Robert
This is good news for all the bloggers,Publishers.
Heh, Darren asks, Feedburner delivers? Anyway, it’s good to see that feedburner is developing, being such a great and essential service to all serious bloggers.
Great news! Just did the config.
Cool.
How about a feature to insert text into the feed :) I’ll be giving away an eBook next Friday to my repeat visitors and RSS feed readers. I found a way to insert text+link (using a generic feedflare) but it would have been nice if there were a simple option to just insert a blurb of text.
I look forward to your interview with Feedburner.
Wonderful! very much look forward to your interview.
Hopefully they will start displaying the author in email subscriptions. email subscribers to multi-author blog currently don’t have context to who wrote the post via their email.
a true integration with Google Analytics would also be a pretty neat.
Just added the script myself, has made me quite happy today!
if we have problems with feedburner, we will forward it to you… hehehe
feedburner only listens to famous people only
Darren,
Thanks for alerting us! I’ve been waiting forEVER for this feature and might have missed it without your head’s up.
You’ve earned another fond High 5 from me.
Oh, Happy Day!
:-)
Thanks ,,,great work :D
I m having a photo blog in blogger, I don’t want to send images to feed subscribers’ inbox. I want send only text. How can I stop it,
Great help…..
Thank you alot Darren for the tip and for pressuring them to offer a better service.
I’d already implemented it.
Very cool! I just set mine up–and they actually give you another option to change the title when there are 2+ posts included AND give you three ways to do that!!
Good work, Darren–using your influence to improve Feedburner for all bloggers!! :)
Heather
Really awesome post I will try this surely
Regards
Salman
http://www.tips4blogging.co.cc
Thank you Feedburner!
This is a GREAT new feature and I hope that I will be able to use it. That really helps to increase conversions, as some subscribers may not be interested in every single post so it will give them options on whether they want to read the one from say…Monday or one from Friday, you know. It also gives a blog a more attractive appearance than the generic “New Blog Post” that shows up for email subscriptions.
and thank YOU Darren for giving us a heads up about the change! i just made the change to my feedburner feed and am overjoyed to see it finally be possible! :D
Ariel
http://www.YouAreTrulyLoved.com
Is this actually a big deal?
YAY!!! Thanks for the tip! I just fixed mine :).
Oh! Darren really cool post, how can i thanks to you, you are such a blogger.
my blog about blogging and money making tips
http://www.teratips.com
Nice! I wonder why it took them so long =)
Hey
could have added the complete path for newbies to track where the change needs to be done….
Also theres some new logo thingie too on the same page. Do checkout
Rgds
What I’ve noticed a couple of days ago was some kind of summary with all the entries titles at the beginning of the email. I did not see it again but it was something nice. if it was a test, feedburner could consider to include it!
Thank you Darren & Feedburner!
My pet peeve about feedburner is their verification process, it’s too much of a process and as a result people add their email address and never complete the process. Maybe they should authorise the publisher to compete the process on their behalf. You find on the total number of subscribers on your list half are inactive subscribers.
Another method which I came across yesterday through flippa.com their verification process is through the telephone. Immediately you enter your phone number you receive an automated call with a code which you then enter to completes the verification process instantly.
Let me update my feedburner right away!
Thanks for the tip as usual.
Thanks Darren & Feedburner. This is a great new feature, thanks to Darren’s prompting (at least that’s his story LOL)
Cheers,
Michael
I guess sometimes dreams really do come true.
Wow… I wonder how long this has been in the works. That’s pretty cool that they got this together. I like to see that kind of progression!
i dont use feedburner, it because i dont know how to use it, lol. but im gonna try it now. thanks
Great news. Thanks to everyone who prodded them until they gave in!
Great news! I’d not even been aware of the lack until you pointed it out. I’m sure my readers will appreciate this upgrade though.
Excellent this will be interesting to hear. I will definatley be checking back to see the interview thanks for the work.
I’ve been a reader for some time and do not usually comment, but I wanted to say thanks Darren – ahead of the curve as usual.
This is a great tip. I agree that without an adequate subject, all emails do look the same. This is much better and should allow people to search for them in their emails better too.
ahhh finally… now the feed count issue needs to be addressed
Awesome! I was thinking about this the other day, thinking that it was pretty weak that my email subscribers were getting email updates simply titled “Jessica Who?” (my blog name) every time.
This is a great help and will certainly add to the personality of my blog. Thanks a lot for suggesting and then telling us about it.
- Jessica
That’s pretty cool. You write about it and they change it. Now that’s blogging power.
Thanks! I just adjusted my subject line.
This is the feature I have been waiting for as well. Google rocks!
I tried using it, it says feed not found. This still have to make it better.