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Ask HN: Who wants to help promote RSS?

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Re: Ask HN: Who wants to help promote RSS?

#91

Post by Semiapies »

rjzzleep wrote: post #40
ferdowsi wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The world is moving past static text content as a medium, which is what RSS/IRC are built for. I want more rich video/media oriented content like what the New York Times is producing, which takes advantage of user interactivity and new Javascript APIs. RSS isn't going to make that happen for me.

Most of NY times content is non interactive. The reason why they don't want RSS isn't because RSS sucks, it's because everyone is trying increase user retention time in their apps to make shareholders happy.

All paranoid conspiracizing aside, the NYT has a metric fuckton of different RSS feeds that all work perfectly fine. RSS is primarily a notification system and only secondarily a content-delivery one.

Re: Ask HN: Who wants to help promote RSS?

#92

Post by tailspin2019 »

onli wrote: post #54
tailspin2019 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a bit of feedback, as someone who hasn't used Gitter before, I just clicked that link and was invited to join by logging in with GitLab, GitHub or Twitter. I don't use my GitHub account for logging in to other sites without a decent amount of consideration (I didn't sign up to GitHub to use it as an SSO system and generally don't like using it for that purpose). And I have neither of the other two accounts. So I…

Okay, sure! I created a form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc9lWrieLAn9azMI_88... . Does it work for you?

Great! I’ve added my email.

Re: Ask HN: Who wants to help promote RSS?

#93

Post by onli »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #77

What percentage of users that find RSS useful are not computer nerds? Whose grandmother actually wants RSS? It seems ridiculous to be obsessed with a protocol or file format. If you need to solve a problem, then solve the problem. It doesn't matter what technical means you use to solve it. If you're just trying to implement some specific technical thing because you're in love with the idea of it, that's never gonna g…

I'd argue that this is for many about solving a problem. RSS is a stand-in here for a technology that enables users to consume contents from distributed authors with a client they prefer, with the default option of not having an algorithmic sort order that serves only the content platform.

This is something also someone's grandmother could want if it enables here to follow her interests online, whatever they may be.

If another solution than RSS achieves that goal - while avoiding the n+1-standard problem - then that's fine with me. RSS could then still be promoted for different usecases, with a technical merit foundation.

Re: Ask HN: Who wants to help promote RSS?

#95

Post by hammyhavoc »

Not that I'm advocating the use of Google Chrome (I am not a user), but they recently added the ability to follow RSS feeds: https://www.pcmag.com/news/google-follow-rss-reader-appears-...

So, this renewed interest in RSS might not be that farfetched.

For additional context: I've used RSS since 1999, and I likely won't ever stop. Much better than algorithmic social media echo chambers, and I can read it on my e-ink device offline.

Re: Ask HN: Who wants to help promote RSS?

#97

Post by hammyhavoc »

Skyy93 wrote: post #22
planb wrote: post #14

You are focusing on the consumption side and your proposed steps seem like a good way to bring back easy consumption of RSS feeds. But the problem lies elsewhere: the blogs I regularly visit still have RSS feeds, but most content now isn’t in blogs anymore. For-profit sites have crippled or completely dropped their feeds to make users see ads. Many people that would have been bloggers a decade ago just publish thread…

You would need a monetizing option for RSS Feeds, but is this really something that we want? Enjoy your new RSS Feed about Quantum Mechanics, featured by BIGCOMPANY, we sell the shitty products you like.

Authentication on RSS feeds is a thing, and I get RSS feeds from several premium subscriptions.

Re: Ask HN: Who wants to help promote RSS?

#98

Post by rambambram »

MadcapJake wrote: post #63

I am seeing a lot of ideas around just increasing exposure of what's there; but to bring RSS back full-force would require a new innovative use (that safely coexists with current syndicated content). What I am thinking is a lowtech social network that utilizes a phone/desktop client for writing posts that then other users can subscribe to via RSS. The client would also provide a feed reader which allows you to either…

Building this right now. No need for a specific client, every device and it's grandmother has a browser. Intermingling happens because the reader software for all the subscriptions is built into the website software that publishes it's own feed (or multiple feeds).

Re: Ask HN: Who wants to help promote RSS?

#99

Post by Semiapies »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #32

I think broadly RSS needs tools to make content prioritisation and find better. Certain feeds like news sites put everything in their feed and they do a terrible job of surfacing what is likely to be valuable. It would be nice if the high volume sites could be tamed some how and its not going to come from them and its not something RSS/Atom deals with. Customised feeds, filtering and people who liked this liked that…

That's not what RSS is for. It's a subscription system that notifies you when something has added new content. You control what you follow.

You can follow aggregators, you can follow curators, and you can filter what you follow. Discovery comes from what you get from who you follow. Humans going, "This is interesting.", you agreeing, and you following another blog or outlet.

Anything else definitionally is the "Silicon Valley algorithms" people say they don't want.

Re: Ask HN: Who wants to help promote RSS?

#100

Post by hammyhavoc »

Semiapies wrote: post #90
jerf wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RSS is built for notification. You can get notifications of new rich-text content, videos, whatever. But notifications when you choose to get them, rather than push notifications. (If I got a push notification to my phone for every RSS article I read I'd go nuts.)

Some people get obsessed with trying to read everything through RSS and never going to a web page. I've never understood that. I find invoking the NYT especially funny because they have MANY RSS feeds, letting you filter by sections.

That's because a lot of us like to read offline and via e-ink. It's replaced a newspaper for many folks who want to just relax and somewhat unplug for a bit.
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