Ask HN: Is RSS dead? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#61

Post by drdeadringer » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

reggieband wrote: post #45

jasode wrote: post #19

By asking the question using the word "dead"[0] which has such offensive connotations, it will spur some to say "it's not dead" -- which isn't really going to be productive for what I think you're really asking. First, in one sense (but doesn't really answer your question) ... the old protocols like RSS (feeds), NNTP (news), IRC (chat), etc are never going to be "dead" because somebody somewhere will always be provid…

RSS does play a growing role in a few places: podcasts [1] and virtual assistant apps (e.g. Alexa [2], Google Home[3], etc.) Although in both cases consumers do not tend to have direct access to it. 1. https://itunespartner.apple.com/podcasts/articles/creating-y... 2. https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/flashbriefing/... 3. https://developers.google.com/news/assistant/newsbriefings/t...

I remember a time before RSS in the late 1990s.

Now, for the past 6 years, I use RSS as my primary method of downloading podcast episodes and webcomic issues. I'm currently subscribed to about 60.

Dead? No. Declining? I can't say that for myself let alone writ large.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#62

Post by IronWolve » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 10:57 PM UTC

I love RSS, using IFTTT tools, I can automate and share different feeds to other different sites, populating and share information from static portals. I can even make RSS feeds from sites that dont offer native RSS.

Many different sites offer RSS feeds, many people dont even know they exist unless they are webmasters or advanced users.

Podcasts are based around RSS feeds, even youtube offers RSS feeds. This really is a powerful tool that is all over that you can use to build core infrastructure for social media and knowledge bases. You would be surprised how many backends of websites uses RSS to spread links around the Internet.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#63

Post by drdeadringer » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 10:58 PM UTC

rodgerd wrote: post #44

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #23

> Is RSS Dead Have you heard of podcasts? They're booming and they rely on RSS. The way they're subscribed to and the way they're submitted to large platforms is via their RSS feeds.

Spotify are trying to "fix" that.

Honest Questions:

* Is Spotify trying to "fix" that now like iTunes tried to "fix" that 20 years ago?

* Why should I "enjoy" Spotify as much as I "enjoyed" iTunes? [I didn't, not even a little bit]

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#64

Post by romdev » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 11:05 PM UTC

robobro wrote: post #43

scarface74 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have yet to find a website that I feel should have an RSS feed that doesn’t have one.

Twitter

My only interface to Twitter is through Newsblur and https://twitrss.me

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#65

Post by nreece » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 11:07 PM UTC

RSS feeds aren't dead. On the contrary, their usage for content aggregation, media monitoring and podcasts has increased in the past few years, specially by power users (inforvores) and in the business world.

Speaking from my own experience running Feedity - https://feedity.com, a growing service that helps with custom feeds for unstructured sources like webpages.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#66

Post by arwhatever » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 11:08 PM UTC

RSS had better not die! It's my escape plan for keeping up with the software industry once Twitter becomes too obnoxious to bear any longer.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#67

Post by timbit42 » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 11:09 PM UTC

zenlot wrote: post #59

Opened this post using RSS in Inoreader. All my news comes via RSS. I use it for news sites, I use it for Medium and I also use it for Reddit. The nice thing about it, is that everything stays in one place, categorized and I can see unread counts. Especially useful while checking reddit feeds. There's no infinite scroll and I can clearly see/mark what's been read and what's not. I can come back later and continue fro…

I use it for eBay and Kijiji. Great for sniping.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#68

Post by threatofrain » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 11:10 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #19

By asking the question using the word "dead"[0] which has such offensive connotations, it will spur some to say "it's not dead" -- which isn't really going to be productive for what I think you're really asking. First, in one sense (but doesn't really answer your question) ... the old protocols like RSS (feeds), NNTP (news), IRC (chat), etc are never going to be "dead" because somebody somewhere will always be provid…

> meaning #1: "dead" is harmless synonym for "decline", "losing popularity", "no longer supported", "no longer in mainstream use", etc.

> meaning #2: "dead" is provocative synonym for "no longer worth learning", "useless", "stopped working forever", "nobody intelligent is using it", etc.

IMO if you can identify two major audiences who will have two different interpretations for your statements, then both interpretations are simultaneously "live" for your context. It is for that reason that Group #2 should always rise to the defense of a technology they don't want derided as terribly useless. It doesn't matter if Group #1 meant something else, because they weren't in full control of their meaning as they spoke into a larger audience.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#69

Post by timbit42 » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 11:12 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #29

thinkingkong wrote: post #10

RSS the protocol, or RSS the experience? The Protocol is alive and kicking, as far as being available, but it's been more or less killed by publishers not promoting it out of the box. AFAIK ad revenue is basically the reason. The replacement set of broadcast tools is still Facebook, Twitter, Direct, and Newsletters. Newsletters are really the new feed.

I have yet to find a website that I feel should have an RSS feed that doesn’t have one.

The Globe & Mail shut down their RSS feed a while ago. They're dead to me now.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#70

Post by johnmarcus » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 11:12 PM UTC

In my experience, the rss feed of so many blog sights is often so broken that it makes it challenging to use, and Soni abondon it every time I try to use it meaningfully.