So I called it Feedgate. There is a lot of response and controversy surrounding the new blog feed being mailed out for free every day, some of it pretty heated.

The good news is that I see that people really care about my blog, and how it is presented. That means a lot, even if I see Americans are losing their patience, sense of humor and perspective when it comes to technology.

There is more good news. A new feed format is coming with tomorrow’s morning feed, it is the one that was supposed to be put up in the first place.

The bad news to some is that this is a relatively complex switch, it won’t happen until tomorrow, and there may be some bumps to smooth out as happens with any new technology. In our world, tomorrow sometimes feels like an eternity, take a deep breath and hold it.

If there are problems, we will fix them.

Here’s what happened. First, the old free morning mail “feed” of my blog, on Feedburner, started having trouble. A growing number of people weren’t getting the blog any more.  We checked it out and found that  Feedburner hasn’t been updated since 2007 (when my blog started) and was rumored to be shutting down soon.

So we decided to switch to SpecificFeeds, a newer and highly regarded feed service, supposedly the best. Specific Feeds offers a free feed version, but we rejected this option because the feed was too primitive – just a long list of titles, an ugly feed without a displayed photo. We all know the new bait-and-switch sales ploy: its free, but only if it’s crap.

You couldn’t see the whole journal, only titles. I didn’t like it, Mannix Marketing didn’t like it. We decided to pay for better.

Of course, as luck would have it, Specific Feeds has a paid feed – starting at $13.50 a month – which displays the blog as it is every day, photos and all in one sweep.

Since photos are one of the signature elements of the blog, the ugly free version was not acceptable. And I didn’t like the clunky stack of titles, and the fact people had to click on a title, but couldn’t see the whole, nicely designed package.

You had to click on the blog to see what it was about.

(Turns out, a lot of other people didn’t like it either.)

So I went with the paid version.

Yesterday, we made the switch from Feedburner to Specific Feeds and the e-mails began almost instantly. I couldn’t imagine what had happened.

It turned out, Mannix told me today, that Specific Feeds messed up and used the free, clunky and ugly feed – bit stacks of titles, no sense of the blog, no photos.  One piece of software didn’t tell another I had purchased the better version.

The angry and pleading messages (some were very nice) began right away. I was surprised at the passion and the heat –  this is a free service, after all, and a lot of blogs don’t offer it all. I like the feedback, but the anger was a bit off-putting, as anger usually is.

Still, it spoke to my blog’s power and reach. I’ve worked hard for that. And I am grateful for that. People don’t want to miss a day, and how can I mutter about that?

We noticed the Specific Feeds problem right away and it took awhile to connect to them, but they acknowledged their mistake and today, began building a new feed – very much like the old  Feedburner one – that will go up tomorrow.

I am told it will look a lot nicer.

People are very frustrated by big tech, they don’t feel anybody is listening, so they bellow and yell sometimes, to make sure somebody is paying attention. They’ve been frustrated too many times by companies who pretend to care but don’t, and who are neither accountable nor reachable.

I was paying attention and so was Mannix, I’ve been answering e-mails all night and day. This is not what I expected to be doing all day, but it is my responsibility to do it, even if I can’t carry out the execution.

We got to work instantly to change the feed and to figure out why some people weren’t getting the blog at all. We are still working on that.

So more good news: The new feed goes up tomorrow morning.

This mailing service of my blog is free to you, and by no means universal. And I am happy to pay for a feed that does what it is supposed to and respects the look and feel of the blog.

I would recommend patience and perspective to people who depend on technology.

There is no such thing as an instant, totally clean technology shift. It’s like getting a new computer or Iphone – something always goes wrong, and 99 times out of 100, it can be fixed easily, or in a day or two. This has taught me to be calm and keep perspective.

We are again migrating thousands of e-mails to a different web site and server.

I know what it’s like to call Verizon or most giant corporations but Mannix is not like that, and I am not like that. Mannix and I have been building this blog together for nearly a decade now, and they are wonderful, dedicated and efficient. I trust them completely.

I am also, I have to concede, very happy to see how many people get the blog mailed to them every morning and get upset when they miss it. I thank you for that, it tells me the blog is worth something and worthy of the the time and money and effort that has gone into.

I don’t deal well with people who threaten to stop reading the blog if I don’t do what they say.  I usually say go in peace, but go. There was only one or two of those this time.

So tomorrow, a better blog feed,  I haven’t seen it, but am told it’s pretty classy. There may be some issues,  setbacks or problems.

If there are, please let me know. If you can be nice, that would be good. I’m not Verizon, and this is just life.