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RSS Is Better Than Twitter

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Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#131

Post by captn3m0 »

If you are interested in RSS, I did a twitter-thread [3] recently on interesting projects in the space. Reproducing here: If you are interested in helping revive #RSS, a thread on some good FOSS projects around RSS:

1. RSS-Bridge[0] - RSS Feeds for websites that don't give you one. Supports instagram/facebook/Google Search and many more (150+) websites. Very easy to contribute, and there are open requests for lots of providers. (I added a Amazon Price Tracker Bridge in 2. MiniFlux - Golang+Postgres based self-hosted RSS feed reader. Minimal/responsive design with keyboard shortcuts https://miniflux.app

3. 3. tt-rss - A highly configurable PHP based RSS feed reader. Supports plugins and has tons of options. UI is similar to Google Reader. https://tt-rss.org

4. Winds - A Beautiful Open Source RSS & Podcast App powered by @getstream_io. I haven't tried self-hosting it yet, but it looks really great. Also, under very active development. https://github.com/GetStream/Winds

5. FreshRSS - Lightweight PHP/SQlite self-hosted feed reader. Looks great as well. https://freshrss.org

6. Kill the Newsletter - Subscribe to a newsletter with a one-time generated email address, it generates a RSS feed for you. Your inbox stays clean. https://www.kill-the-newsletter.com

7. OPML Generator - Generates OPML Files using subscriptions on other sites. Supports GitHub stars (generates a file you can import to follow releases from all your starred repos on GitHub) https://opml.bb8.fun/ (Personal project, so count this as a shameless self plug)

8. RSS never really died, so revival is a misnomer in that sense. All major news publications still support RSS. The entire Podcast ecosytem works on RSS. You should also look at WebSub and ActivityPub (both W3C recommendations) if you're interested in this.

9. And finally a cool new idea - build a Telegram Channel to RSS Feed generator. Will open up so much hidden content to the open web.

10. Bonus: https://www.youneedfeeds.com/ Info site that you should share with your friends to help them get started with RSS.

[0]: https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge

[1]: https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge/pull/741

[3]: https://twitter.com/captn3m0/status/1018850458675408902

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#132

Post by captn3m0 »

Arkanosis wrote: post #102
SkyPuncher wrote: post #46

Lately, I've been getting back into RSS to stay up to date with industry news. I've noticed a lot of industry blogs still support RSS. On Mac, I've been using Leaf with no real complaints. I've found many blogs happily serve rss content, even if a button isn't explicitly advertised. Some of the url's I'll try: * example.com/rss.xml * example.com/index.rss * example.com/?feed=rss * example.com/feed/ * exmample.com/fee…

I usually find RSS feeds by looking at the page source code: - ctrl+u - ctrl+f rss - ctrl+f atom (only if “rss” was not found at step 2). I can't remember of any site providing RSS on which this hasn't worked. Actually, even for sites that advertise their RSS feed, this approach is the fastest for me (because of the lack of consistency of such advertisements).

This used to be easy with RSS support in Firefox. Not anymore

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#133

Post by beagle3 »

soapdog wrote: post #95
u801e wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just wish Mozilla introduce subscribing to RSS as a first class feature in Firefox. Fortunately, Thunderbird still has this feature.

I wrote about reading blogs with Thunderbird not long ago: http://andregarzia.com/2018/11/reading-blogs-with-thunderbir... I think a similar setup would be good for many people here who wish to read RSS but doesn't want to add another SaaS to their life.

I’ve used that for over a decade, but eventually gave up and signed up for NewsBlur so reading on my phone and my laptop would be in sync. It is open source and you can run it yourself but I gave up and let Sam host it for me.

The other in-sync option would be setting up an rss/imap gateway, which is not even available as a SaaS afaik, so would cost about as much in hosting (unless you already have a server you can use) and about 20 times in labor.

Happy paying NewsBlur customer - even though the iOS app is a battery hog.

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#134

Post by cannonedhamster »

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #104
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not Google? Google failed to gain traction in the social network space with G+. If you can't beat them commoditize them! Why not make interoperable networks based on open standards first class citizens in chrome/chromium? Not just by adding support but also by helping move the RSS standard forward.

Good idea! Maybe one day Google will create an ecosystem around RSS. They could call it something like “Google Reader”...

TheOldReader is a really nice RSS reader built after the demise of Google Reader. They've been consistently solid.

https://theoldreader.com

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#135

Post by hannasanarion »

tamal wrote: post #116
khendron wrote: post #108

Although I am a big fan of RSS, I find this article very disingenuous. The author complains about the chaos, vulgarity, and hostility of Twitter, but those complaints would apply to almost any social media platform. Then he suggests replacing it with RSS feeds from curated, professional RSS sources, which is not social media. You could achieve the same things on Twitter if you just followed the same curated, professi…

The solution to “too much RSS” is the same for Twitter. Unsubscribe/unfollow. Twitter does not require you to follow someone to interact with them. I follow relatively few people directly yet I have themed lists following other accounts. If I want local news I check my local list. Twitter works quite well in this regard vs. Facebook where you need to be “friends” to interact.

No, that doesn't work, because Twitter shows tweets to you if their algorithm thinks you will like them, whether you have a follower relationship to it or not. Twitter's newsfeed is nothing at all like an RSS feed.

You can turn twitter into an RSS feed with various other apps (I like Feedbin), and it greatly improves the experience.

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#136

Post by cannonedhamster »

tamal wrote: post #116
khendron wrote: post #108

Although I am a big fan of RSS, I find this article very disingenuous. The author complains about the chaos, vulgarity, and hostility of Twitter, but those complaints would apply to almost any social media platform. Then he suggests replacing it with RSS feeds from curated, professional RSS sources, which is not social media. You could achieve the same things on Twitter if you just followed the same curated, professi…

The solution to “too much RSS” is the same for Twitter. Unsubscribe/unfollow. Twitter does not require you to follow someone to interact with them. I follow relatively few people directly yet I have themed lists following other accounts. If I want local news I check my local list. Twitter works quite well in this regard vs. Facebook where you need to be “friends” to interact.

As a counterpoint you're unlikely to be doxxed, lose your job, or any of the other social "features" using RSS. While one could simply say nothing and hope to avoid this, it's still up to the Twitter algorithms to display relevant content, which could change at any moment. Effectively it's about control, with Twitter you're hoping for benevolence as you're the product, with RSS you're the customer.

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#137

Post by whoopdedo »

Can you track trending topics with RSS?

Can you carry on a conversation between content creators and subscribers over RSS?

Can you discover new content by following a RSS social graph?

RSS is better than Twitter in only one aspect and that's the one-to-many subscriber model. And that's the least interesting and least profitable thing that Twitter provides.

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#138

Post by grenoire »

whoopdedo wrote: post #137

Can you track trending topics with RSS? Can you carry on a conversation between content creators and subscribers over RSS? Can you discover new content by following a RSS social graph? RSS is better than Twitter in only one aspect and that's the one-to-many subscriber model. And that's the least interesting and least profitable thing that Twitter provides.

1. No, do you need to? Trending for whom? People could create curated feeds for this purpose.

2. No.

3. See 1.

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#139

Post by [deleted] »

dguo wrote: post #11
knight17 wrote: post #3

I just wish Mozilla introduce subscribing to RSS as a first class feature in Firefox. If they can introduce and integrate Pocket, I think an open technology like RSS deserves a fair chance. But they'd need to invest a little bit to make it easy to subscribe—similar to following on Twitter/Instagram or Liking pages on Facebook—to receive site updates. Having to find and enter byzantine URLs is not the way to go althou…

Firefox used to have built-in RSS support, but it was removed in Firefox 64: https://www.zdnet.com/article/end-nears-for-rss-firefox-64-t...

[deleted]

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#140

Post by notadoc »

Twitter is basically Outrage as a Service, it is not a good information platform.

I still miss Google Reader, I think it was a serious mistake to kill it off, and doing so largely killed RSS too.

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