Live data from Hacker News

It's time to head back to RSS?

wired.com

341–350 of 503 posts

Re: It's time to head back to RSS?

#341

For those getting into RSS, I can recommend two resources. For a SaaS newsreader, I really enjoyed using Newsblur. Great service, excellent functionality, and first-rate support. For a desktop newsreader, I suggest Emacs with elfeed. That's what I use today, and is the only reason I'm not still happily paying for Newsblur.

+1 for elfeed!

Using that with eww for reading articles has made checking the news a very pleasant experience for me.

Re: It's time to head back to RSS?

#342
post #142

For those getting into RSS, I can recommend two resources. For a SaaS newsreader, I really enjoyed using Newsblur. Great service, excellent functionality, and first-rate support. For a desktop newsreader, I suggest Emacs with elfeed. That's what I use today, and is the only reason I'm not still happily paying for Newsblur.

You lost me at Emacs.

Even if you don't use Emacs as an editor, consider using it just for elfeed (or magit). It works on almost every platform in existence and is rock solid.

Re: It's time to head back to RSS?

#343

The key thing to know about RSS is that most of the real news sources, those that have actual reporters who go out and find news, have RSS feeds. Reuters, the Associated Press, the New York Times, the BBC... Here's Reuters Top News.[1] Just the news, no ads, no clickbait. Reuters is useful because their RSS feed contains a readable story summary. Many RSS feeds just have a truncated sentence and a link. Both CNN [2]…

Pretty much everything has RSS feeds. Random blogs, webcomics, even major sites like YouTube.

If it puts out content on a regular basis, chances are you can subscribe to it via RSS.

Re: It's time to head back to RSS?

#344
post #114

RSS never went away. Podcasting has made careers (e.g. deboarah francis-white, roman mars, andy & helen zaltzman, ollie mann and many others). The technological underpinning of podcasting is entirely RSS. And it ain't going away, or getting embraced and extended any time soon.

Podcasting feels like an alternate reality where none of the massive players took over and everything stayed federated.

Some "players" like Stitcher are trying their best to get away from that, though. And they're seeing moderate success, too.

I feel like podcasts have simply been overlooked by big media types, and the day is coming where enough power will concentrate and advertisers will only want to give money to networks instead of individual podcasts.

Enjoy the freedom while it lasts. I think 5 years from now, no individuals will be able to make money from it without joining a "network."

Re: It's time to head back to RSS?

#345
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Podcasting feels like an alternate reality where none of the massive players took over and everything stayed federated.

Yep. It's perplexing that a YouTube for podcasts (with centralized ad serving and similar profit sharing) hasn't emerged. The space is endearing - maybe that's why it is so vibrant?

I work for a company that tried to do exactly this and we ended up pivoting to enterprise once our technology matured. The money just isn't there, that's why this service doesn't exist. Podcasts are cheap to host and easy enough to produce that nobody is going to invest serious money unless they are a big producer like Gimlet, Slate, NPR, etc. In those cases they have their own resources and technology stacks. There's little need to rely on a third party like us.

Everybody else just used YouTube.

Re: It's time to head back to RSS?

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After Google Reader went away I was actively looking for a reader where, by giving the creator money, I was ensuring it would stick around. And also where I was the customer rather than the product. There's a free version you can use to try it out but it's limited in the number of feeds. And $24 a year isn't a high price for what I'm getting.

Looks like it's $36/year now.

Still easily worth it. I probably get my $2/month value's worth in a single couch session, throwing my saved YouTube feeds onto the Chromecast.

Re: It's time to head back to RSS?

#347

A visitor that comes to your site via social is MUCH more valuable than someone that comes via RSS. The economics of this reality are what removed RSS from the limelight. Dear publishers, let's fix this. Whenever you publish a blog post, etc. please syndicate it on social and then go back to your site to add "DISCUSS THIS ON TWITTER/whatever AT https://t.co/aesou02" . Make sure that this also syndicates to RSS. Dear…

I am struggling to understand. Why is a social-origin visitor more valuable?

Honest question. I would have expected an RSS-origin to be a more tech-savvy reader and more likely to engage.

Re: It's time to head back to RSS?

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dev has always been really responsive and closely watching the community, while Feedly focuses on premium support and feels more corporate. Several features are free: Unlimited sources and feeds, entire search for your own feeds, unlimited tags, sharing via inoreader email There is also: loading of mobilized content via single click/key, better shortcuts, comprehensive tagging management, more settings, better se…

Now that I'm trying Inoreader, the killer feature for me is being able to open items in background tabs. Too bad that requires a plugin for Firefox.

Are you talking about the keyboard shortcut? If so, there is no need for an addon on Firefox.

Re: It's time to head back to RSS?

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. It's perplexing that a YouTube for podcasts (with centralized ad serving and similar profit sharing) hasn't emerged. The space is endearing - maybe that's why it is so vibrant?

I think what quickly became entrenched was the apps people used, which happened to be built on the decentralized model.

The directories are pretty centralized though they don't really need to be. I assume an app like Overcast draws from iTunes and/or Google.

Re: It's time to head back to RSS?

#350

I've tried Feedly but my goodness, the corporate language is such a turn off. I just want a feed reader, I don't want to "Fuel your team's success," "Enrich articles with unique insights," "Automate your content workflows," "Reinforce your digital brand". These features may be cool and useful, but the way they're sold makes me gag. I used my ad blocker to remove the "Well done!" that appears when everything is marked…

I never actually left NetNewsWire. It's kinda crappy in a lot of ways, but it's also "good enough," at least for my purposes.
Post reply on HN