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Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

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Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#241

Post by icc97 »

reitanqild wrote: post #203
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #181

Anyone who talks about revival of RSS without talking about how it will be sustainable is just ignorant or naive, because the main reason it became what it became has everything to do with money. Content providers centralized because centralized attention is more valuable than aggregation of decentralized attention in an ad driven economy. Just because you want RSS to make a come back doesn't mean it has any chance o…

Ars technica provides full rss - to paying readers. The price is reasonable. It's a win-win: they probably earn more on each paying customer than on 10 or 20 adblocking users like us. Paying customers get full uncrippled RSS, no ads and no tracking (I think it's tiered though so you might have to pay slightly more to get all these three).

I can imagine a subscription service where you could pay to access a bunch of RSS feeds.

The fundamental problem is that people are used to not paying for content. But one of the things that has changed over the twenty years that the article talks about is that people are more willing to pay for things on the internet.

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#242

Post by shams93 »

8bitsrule wrote: post #115
originalsimba wrote: post #27

Did anyone else notice how corporations like Twitter and Facebook quietly tried to kill RSS in the past 10 years? RSS is a wonderful technology with embodies the spirit of the Internet. Facebook and Twitter are, by comparison, cancer. I often recommend WordPress to folks as an alternative for blogging, because it is free and has RSS functional out of the box.

Not just them. After last week's discussion, I noticed this week that, while Rick Steves does podcasts, I had to hunt for the RSS feeds page hosted on his own website. WTF? My usual policy for podcasts is, RSS subscription or else. Ain't got time to visit the damn website. Science Friday tried that for a while and soon went back.

Yeah you're not losing by syndicating a podcast if you're selling ads on your program you just want as wide a reach as possible.

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#243

Post by kiliankoe »

8bitsrule wrote: post #115
originalsimba wrote: post #27

Did anyone else notice how corporations like Twitter and Facebook quietly tried to kill RSS in the past 10 years? RSS is a wonderful technology with embodies the spirit of the Internet. Facebook and Twitter are, by comparison, cancer. I often recommend WordPress to folks as an alternative for blogging, because it is free and has RSS functional out of the box.

Not just them. After last week's discussion, I noticed this week that, while Rick Steves does podcasts, I had to hunt for the RSS feeds page hosted on his own website. WTF? My usual policy for podcasts is, RSS subscription or else. Ain't got time to visit the damn website. Science Friday tried that for a while and soon went back.

How is something that doesn't publish an RSS feed even considered a podcast? I hate how there's "Spotify only" "podcasts" now. If I can't subscribe to a feed in a client of my choice, it's not a podcast.

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#244

Post by zczc »

groby_b wrote: post #180
JoshMnem wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, I didn't know that. Mozilla should make that more prominent so that users who don't know what RSS/ATOM is could "subscribe to this website" with just a click.

That was funny. Mozilla used to make that more prominent. Most users didn't care, because they still didn't know what that weird icon meant . That was ultimately the downfall of RSS - the web tech scene never managed to communicate to the average user what RSS was good for, what it did, and how to use it. The issue isn't "not knowing about RSS/ATOM". You don't need to. The same way e.g. you don't need to know what th…

You can add the RSS toolbar button manually, see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/795692

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#245

Post by KozmoNau7 »

na85 wrote: post #182
JoshMnem wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most podcasts that I've encountered lately don't have RSS feeds listed. You have to view source to find the URLs. The Internet needs to revive that open technology culture. Instead of Facebook/Twitter/G+/etc. subscribe to RSS feeds. Instead of Medium, use WordPress/Hugo/Metalsmith/etc. on Netlify/Surge/Github etc. Instead of Mac, use GNU/Linux. Etc.

>Instead of Mac, use GNU/Linux. Bought my first Macbook pro after being a linux/ThinkPad guy since 2008. I'm probably never going back to Linux on a laptop. I actually have working suspend and resume, plus it's Unix-like under the hood. Trackpad actually works without a bunch of ugly hacks since they deprecated synaptics drivers. no systemd, etc. I spend almost no time fiddling with my system nowadays. I want to use…

I'm on my fourth Thinkpad (T42, T420, T440, now X220i) and all of them have worked perfectly with Linux, including suspend and hibernation.

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#246

Post by hvidgaard »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #234
hvidgaard wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people say "RSS" they really mean articles delivered with RSS. And most people use "RSS" through an app(lication). My point is that the economic model that powers podcasts can power articles through RSS as well.

What is the "economic model" you speak of? It's surely not banner ads, and it's surely not search ads. Also it can't do behavioral targeting. Please educate me

They're "sponsored by", just like some YouTubers do. So if your target audience is significant, you can choose to include something from a sponsor in return for a payment.

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#247

Post by ge0rg »

eric_the_read wrote: post #84
LoSboccacc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RSS has no analytics. that's the big weakness. RSS has been stripped of content even in most other blogs, substituting it for links back to the main sites, which is a workable compromise for webmaster but not one that helps readers. yahoo pipes where a stopgap for a while, until yahoo pulled the plug. I think what's needed is an intrusive format that delivers metrics and tracking. sure it'd be another tool for contro…

RSS doesn't need analytics. If you want analytics, put them on the links in the feed. If you want to know that people are reading the link at all, either put in an invisible pixel, or just include a paragraph with a [more...] link.

RSS feeds that provide a paragraph (or less) and a "more..." link make me unsubscribe immediately. I'm most often reading my feeds when offline or on the go, and not having the full article makes it worthless.

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#248

Post by olau »

na85 wrote: post #182
JoshMnem wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most podcasts that I've encountered lately don't have RSS feeds listed. You have to view source to find the URLs. The Internet needs to revive that open technology culture. Instead of Facebook/Twitter/G+/etc. subscribe to RSS feeds. Instead of Medium, use WordPress/Hugo/Metalsmith/etc. on Netlify/Surge/Github etc. Instead of Mac, use GNU/Linux. Etc.

>Instead of Mac, use GNU/Linux. Bought my first Macbook pro after being a linux/ThinkPad guy since 2008. I'm probably never going back to Linux on a laptop. I actually have working suspend and resume, plus it's Unix-like under the hood. Trackpad actually works without a bunch of ugly hacks since they deprecated synaptics drivers. no systemd, etc. I spend almost no time fiddling with my system nowadays. I want to use…

"I spend almost no time fiddling with my system nowadays."

And this is perhaps the main difference. You stopped tinkering.

You can install a Linux distro aimed a people not interested in tinkering and it will likely just work.

"... but in my opinion quality ux requires someone to get paid to do the un glamorous work like fixing compatibility issues and corner cases."

There are in fact quite of bunch of people getting paid to fix compatibility issues and corner cases.

Try buying hardware from a Linux-based vendor.

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#249

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

hvidgaard wrote: post #246
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the "economic model" you speak of? It's surely not banner ads, and it's surely not search ads. Also it can't do behavioral targeting. Please educate me

They're "sponsored by", just like some YouTubers do. So if your target audience is significant, you can choose to include something from a sponsor in return for a payment.

Do you think that model works for textual content the same way it works for Podcast?

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#250

Post by acct1771 »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #233
gkya wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let it be fought by them all the time. Useful websites will have an RSS feed. It's a nice filter, IMO.

that's kind of an ivory tower argument. "let's people don't have nice thing, we know what's best for them." meanwhile, most normal use don't gives a damn if the site track their behavior and post relevant ads, as long as they get quality content and ads aren't abusive they believe it's a fair bargain.

"ads aren't abusive"

"believe"

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