With Google RSS alerts down then pan, I’ve switched to Talkwalker
http://www.talkwalker.com/alerts/manage
The problem is that the RSS feeds which Talkwalker produces are initially not populated with results. They have RSS, CHANNEL, TITLE, LINK and DESCRIPTION tags but no ITEM tags until it is populated, which can sometimes takes a while.
Despite there being no requirement for RSS feeds to have items, Newsblur chokes on this, saying it’s not a valid feed. This means that I have to create the feed and, rather than adding it to Newsblur straight away, wait until it populates and then add it. This is difficult to keep track of when you have many alerts!
Can you please allow Newsblur to treat valid RSS feeds with no items as valid?
P.S. On the whole loving Newsblur and hope it continues to improve.