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RSS Is Better Than Twitter

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Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There's plenty of really good solutions around : 1. Online: Inoreader, Feedly, Newsblur Newsbin, The Old Reader, Feeder... 2. Browser extension: the great Feedbro 3. Desktop: Liferea (Linux), QuiteRSS (Windows), Caffeinated, Readki, Reeder (MacOS) For RSSOwl and RSS Bandit (Windows), there's nothing new for years/ The great FeedDemon (Windows) stopped it's dev years ago. 3. Self-hosted: Tiny Tiny RSS, Fever, Leed, Selfoss

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#252

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…

When you use the Wappalyzer browser extension (https://www.wappalyzer.com/download for Firefox, Chrome, Brave) you can detect the platform (CMS) used.

WordPress? Add /feed/ For more tips: go to https://wordpress.org/support/article/wordpress-feeds/

Drupal? Try rss.xml ?feed=rss /feed/

Joomla? You can try ?format=feed&type=rss or /itemlist/?format=feed

Blogger? Add /feeds/posts/default

*Spip ? Try /spip.php?page=backend

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#253
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As one commentator said in the linked article: protocols are better than platforms. You're right! For users this is absolutely true. Yet, almost all the companies that you might think of as potentially interested in RSS are platforms . You cannot sell ads in a protocol. This is the core of why Twitter has replaced RSS. RSS is better for users, but Twitter is better for publishers and platforms. So users wind up fol…

Sorry to split hairs here but RSS is not a protocol but a syndication format : http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Atom is also a format but have proposed a publication protocol : https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5023

You're completely correct!

Is it perhaps possible that in this particular case, the difference you so wisely point to between a format and a protocol is possessed of a great and bountiful opportunity to be relevant? The discussion at hand is between "protocols" and "platforms", which might otherwise be cast as "standards" and "products".

Again, you're completely correct. It might just be worth considering that in some cases, a distinction without difference can be of limited value to a discussion where it is at best tangential.

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RSS is anti-ads. If people don't leave their reader, they don't visit websites, don't load ads, don't ping tracking services. So any alternative to RSS, content creators relying on ads will fight tooth and nail to not make it mainstream ever.

Mails are also ad-free, and they have no problem showing them in gmail. Same would be possible for newsfeeds. Actually, it would be even simpler, as they know the urls and could link this directly with ads shown in web search or on the specific pages. Though, majority of people using RSS are technical competent people, using adblockers, so likely it would be just pointless.

Yes but with mails, you read... mails. That is what you consume. With readers, you consume content that is most probably there because of potential ad revenue. Yes, RSS is generally used by technical people - but you'd be surprised how many technical people don't use adblocks, sometimes because they don't care and sometimes because they don't think it is ethical to do so. And there always is the possibility that it can evolve into something that is more convenient used by masses. So it is a net negative in terms of revenue.

And I'm not only talking about people that produce readers, but also about content creators. I'm making a site and hoping to turn a profit through ads and my interesting content - why would I want to provide a convenient stripped down version of my website for you to consume - something that is a net negative for my revenue (hosting and transferring data costs money)? Sure, I can provide "excerpts" in RSS, but I'd rather prefer you go to my homepage to see what is new - it is thoroughly AB tested to lure you in, spend some time and see some ads - maybe click one.

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#255
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's super easy to use these feeds to automate stuff. Half of my IFTTT are about monitoring RSS feeds and taking an action upon them. The other halfs are webhooks.

Interesting. Do you mind to explain this a bit more?

For example I have a Kobo eReader (Glo HD) and I like to read on it and unfortunately there is no builtin RSS reader app available for it but it does support Pocket natively. My workaround is to either monitor some RSS feeds with specific keywords in IFTTT, and send the URL article to my Pocket account, which in turns get synced to my Kobo every night.

I also want to get notified right away for articles that use a specific keyword, so I have other applets that will send an IFTTT rich notification to my phone with the link to the article.

Or you know, I have some other RSS feed I use with a torrent client to automatically fetch "stuff", and once the download is completed, I configured the torrent client to send an HTTP POST request with the torrent title to IFTTT, which in turn send me a push notification to let me know a download was completed.

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#256
post #55
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they bought Pocket, so I'd assume they wouldn't want their investment to be for nothing.

They bought Pocket AFTER they installed it by default in Firefox as some kind of PR disaster control.

Conspiracy Theory: Mozilla wanted to acquire the service from the beginning, but before doing so they would integrate it beforehand to stir up some drama, devalue it a little bit and buy it for less.

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#257

I've tried to use RSS before, but the big hangup for me is most sites don't put the full article in the feed, just a title and summary. To me having to go back and forth just kills the whole thing.

Feedbro Reader has built-in partial->full article conversion engine that lets you get full articles within the reader (must be enabled per-feed basis in Properties). Check it out at https://nodetics.com/feedbro/

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#258

If you look at both Twitter and RSS superficially, you can easily decide one is better than the other. If you've ever tried and failed to create your own "perfect" news reader as I have, you'll realize both suck, and have for over a decade now and they're never going ever improve. The real issue isn't the pros and cons of one platform vs. another from an informational or social perspective, the real issue is much mor…

I have 50K regexs on a black-list to filter feeds on my reader. AI would help with some, but this brute force method goes a long way too.

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#259

If you look at both Twitter and RSS superficially, you can easily decide one is better than the other. If you've ever tried and failed to create your own "perfect" news reader as I have, you'll realize both suck, and have for over a decade now and they're never going ever improve. The real issue isn't the pros and cons of one platform vs. another from an informational or social perspective, the real issue is much mor…

I have 50K regexs on a black-list to filter feeds on my reader. AI would help with some, but this brute force method goes a long way too.

That's... amazing! I admire your dedication (addiction?). :-)
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