It's time to head back to RSS? • Hacker News Board

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

#401

Post by DrScump » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 8:48 PM UTC

fulldecent wrote: post #307

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…

  "DISCUSS THIS ON TWITTER/whatever AT https://t.co/aesou02"

But some of us refuse to use Twitter for such purposes and won't click on shortened/anonymized URLs from strangers in any case.

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

#402

Post by ghaff » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 8:50 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #381

ghaff wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, yeah, that's true, but most of the apps have some sort of escape valve, right?

Typically you can always just add a URL manually.

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

#403

Post by bryanrasmussen » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 8:54 PM UTC

Jetroid wrote: post #232

_pctq wrote: post #164

Funny, I've set up a RSS reader again just this week. Prior to that, my main source of information was google feed (when you sweep right on android main screen - for those who don't know it, it's a feed of news curated by google supposed to match our interests). I totally loved it, as it properly detected my interests and shown articles about them even from websites I don't know about. But lately, I saw more and more…

> it's a feed of news curated by google supposed to match our interests Really? I've always found it to be awful, majority things I am not interested in. I just checked, and only 2 in 10 were mildly interesting to me. Three of them were about sports, which is way off the mark for me. Does it optimise based on my interactions with that application in particular, or is it meant to be linked with the rest of my google a…

Do you share your computer with other people - kids, significant other, other family members? I find that has really ruined google's ability to consistently suggest me useful things across its products. My 8 year old daughter has especially ruined youtube for me.

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

#404

Post by sago » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:26 PM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #399

sago wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need it to have comments. But I think the lack of commenting is the big problem of an RSS focused ecosystem. Shooting comments off into the ether is fine by clicking the page and commenting there. But, if you have a couple of dozen blogs in your RSS feed, and leave a handful of comments a day, clicking back through the specific place to see if you've been responded to is way too much effort. Sites like HN, R…

Any decent commenting system lets you receive reply notifications. If some of them don't, the solution is to fix that, not split the userbase by constructing an entirely new, parallel comment system.

I'm not sure what you mean, sorry.

I've seen email notifications, but to me they are just as bad as subscribing to a lot of sites by email. That's kind of what RSS is for: aggregation. So yes, it means you don't have to click through sites, I accept that, but still not a good user experience. If you mean something else, let me know, I am interested.

I don't know what you mean by splitting the user base or constructing a parallel comment system. I'm just talking about how to provide commenting, as a content publisher. RSS + on-site page by page commenting (even with email notifications) has a fraction of the engagement (in my anecdotal experience) of FB.

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

#405

Post by danShumway » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:43 PM UTC

fulldecent wrote: post #307

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've been wanting to set something like this up with Hacker News. The problem is that you have to do it two-stage; your website needs to go live, then you need to post it (so you can get the post url), then you need to update the website.

It's not insurmountable, it's just a bit harder than it should be to automate, especially if you're running a static site or something that takes a minute or two to go live. I'd love if social sites had some kind of API for settting up a draft post or deterministic urls, so you could pre-include the link during your build step.

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

#406

Post by flamedoge » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:43 PM UTC

_pctq wrote: post #164

Funny, I've set up a RSS reader again just this week. Prior to that, my main source of information was google feed (when you sweep right on android main screen - for those who don't know it, it's a feed of news curated by google supposed to match our interests). I totally loved it, as it properly detected my interests and shown articles about them even from websites I don't know about. But lately, I saw more and more…

definitely not enough "feed" for anyone

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

#407

Post by aoeusnth1 » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

pacoverdi wrote: post #110

> THE MODERN WEB contains no shortage of horrors, from ubiquitous ad trackers This is from a page that connects to (excerpt): c.amazon-adsystem.com z-na.amazon-adsystem.com tag.bounceexchange.com graph.facebook.com sb.scorecardresearch.com cdn.mediavoice.com odb.outbrain.com cdn.quantummetric.com native.sharethrough.com s.skimresources.com pixel.tapad.com d.turn.com p.typekit.net use.typekit.net cdn.yldbt.com segment…

Yeah, but to be fair, the journalist who wrote this has little to no influence over the analytics choices made by the web developers who run wired.com.

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

#408

Post by muddi900 » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 10:08 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #225

Zhyl wrote: 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?

Stitcher, Audible, Spotify, etc. are all trying, by creating walled gardens in the form of subscriptions. The end goal would be to create a youtube-like monolith for Audio media

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

#409

Post by pers0n » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 10:13 PM UTC

Yes let Web 2.0s dream of open standards win over this world walled web we have today

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

#410

Post by yxhuvud » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 10:15 PM UTC

gglitch wrote: post #322

yxhuvud wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the same in the media industry, RSS is everywhere. It is just that the end users seldom see it..

Could you elaborate on this, please?

What I mean is that it is often used as a transport format for when some component or app will need dynamic and styled text content that update over time. Often in web applications, but not always.