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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

#251

Post by chenster »

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.

If you are old enough, you should remember Web Services, a RSS fork by Microsoft, then came REST as a lightweight WS that just works for 99% of the Internet. So RSS never actually died but just evolved into many different forms.

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#252

Post by hvidgaard »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #249
hvidgaard wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If they use ad networks I can block it, but inline and serve from their own servers and I cannot. Maybe it'll work, maybe it will not, but I'm inclined to believe it will to the same extend advertising works in newspapers and magazines.

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#253

Post by jiggunjer »

reitanqild wrote: post #209
your-nanny wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much I'd pay for a full content rss feed from a good blog... Maybe 20cents/mo.? I know, cheap, but there is lots of content...

I actually don't want to pay anyone monthly. But I really like the Blendle model and would be happy to pay more through them if more relevant content (including blogs in my case) becomes available and easy to access: It is pay-per-view but reasonably priced and with reasonable (last I checked) refunds if you happen to click on some clickbait. I also like Spotify but I think Blendle has a better business model, at lea…

I like the pay-per-GB model, but not sure if it would work with feeds that contain video or audio, or just large trivial filler images.

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#254

Post by callumlocke »

gkya wrote: post #161
dmix wrote: post #116

> No suspicious javascript. My only problem with this is the very positive trend towards design-heavy journalism... just like the NYTimes Wind Turbine article currently on the homepage: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/23/business/ener... I love the Instapaper/RSS style consumption as much as anyone but that doesn't mean that multi-MB pages with plenty of JS/CSS/Images are always a bad thing. Maybe the sol…

That'll probably die out as people understand that nobody gives a flying fuck to all that silly evil sorcery, except the guys who made them. The way analytics works today, most web publishers are basically living in a bubble that distorts the image of the outer world.

Can you expand on this? How do analytics distort publishers' perspective of what's popular? Not disagreeing, I just want to know what you mean.

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#255

Post by jiggunjer »

dmix wrote: post #116

> No suspicious javascript. My only problem with this is the very positive trend towards design-heavy journalism... just like the NYTimes Wind Turbine article currently on the homepage: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/23/business/ener... I love the Instapaper/RSS style consumption as much as anyone but that doesn't mean that multi-MB pages with plenty of JS/CSS/Images are always a bad thing. Maybe the sol…

is there anything preventing javascript from being used in feeds? Couldn't an RSS article look exactly the same as on some heavily designed website? I'm not very familiar with the technical limitations, only that everything is transferred via xml?

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#256

Post by rimliu »

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…

Nitpick — it's not Unix-like, it is Unix.

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#257

Post by jiggunjer »

keyle wrote: post #34

Thing is, RSS needs to change to become more user friendly. Yes it's really easy to understand, but it's a hell of a lot easier for someone to type "fa" in their browser to get their 'currated' news than some specialised app.

but facebook is also a specialized app? what's stopping you from typing "fe" in your browser to get your news feed?

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#258

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

hvidgaard wrote: post #252
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If they use ad networks I can block it, but inline and serve from their own servers and I cannot. Maybe it'll work, maybe it will not, but I'm inclined to believe it will to the same extend advertising works in newspapers and magazines.

Well, it is a fact that it doesn't work. I'm not making this up. The whole industry knows it doesn't work.

This type of advertising has a name of its own: "native advertising". Companies like Buzzfeed, etc. made a lot of money in the beginning by taking advantage of this new format, essentially tricking readers into thinking that these are actual real content.

However it doesn't work as well as it used to because people have pretty much figured out what a native ad looks like.

However podcasts are single threaded, meaning if you're listening to a podcast and an ad starts playing, you could skip it but most people just keep it on as long as it's not too long. Basically it's a pushed advertising. But this is completely different when it comes to textual content because visual content is easily ignorable AND blockable.

Plus, even if you don't block or ignore it, you still only glance at the banner ad, which is completely different from the level of advertising done by podcasters.

There are tons more reasons why podcasts and textual media are completely different beasts, but the gist is, content industry is not as simple as it looks. Every ad format has a different value from one another, and also it depends on how focused the audience is, etc.

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#259

Post by jboynyc »

dewey wrote: post #16

I'm always positively surprised how compatible the whole RSS ecosystem mostly is. They either implement the Google Reader API or the Fever API and you can choose between a lot of different apps for your platforms. My current combination that I'm happy with for a few years is: https://miniflux.net + Reeder on iOS and Mac

I also run miniflux and like it a lot.

However, I was surprised to see that there are no viable Android apps that can speak to the Fever API. None of the current feed reader apps in the Google or F-Droid app stores qualify, and the APKs of an unmaintained app called Press floating around aren't too confidence inspiring.

Re: Now Is the Perfect Time for an RSS Renaissance

#260

Post by Vinnl »

anonymouz wrote: post #149
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.

> You have to view source to find the URLs. In Firefox, do Right Click->View Page Info. The "Feeds" tabs lists the links. There are also extensions (e.g. "Awesome RSS") that will put a symbol in your URL bar.

You don't even need an extension. Enter Customise mode (in the menu, or right click on a toolbar button), then drag the Subscribe icon to your toolbar.
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