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Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

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Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#131

Post by 0max »

reaperducer wrote: post #95

I think a lot of people think RSS is dead because they never see it promoted anywhere. Pretty much every web site has a row of social media icons, but hardly ever is there an RSS icon in the row, even if the web site supports it. Frankly, I don't think most people who run web sites even know that the framework/CMS/rolfburger they're using automatically publishes RSS feeds for them. Yesterday I stumbled across an app…

I use feedly myself which pulls in articles via RSS. I even got into this thread with an RSS link. Frankly, it's a great resource to keep up with different blogs and sites without having them all live in your bookmarks bar.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#132

Post by timw4mail »

Part of the problem with RSS feeds is that they have to be found more often than not.

This is one of the few reasons I still use 'View Source' functionality in browsers.

Even with this downside, it is still way better than some website-specific account thing you have to sign up for (Hello, SmackJeeves)

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#133

Post by ptrott2017 »

Firstly - call out to Dave Winer - his work on outliners and RSS have both proven incredible useful, influential and long lasting.

Is RSS dead? No not by a long shot. Is it as visible as it was in bloggings early days nearly 20 years ago when the spec had been written (2002) and the orange logo was displayed on websites - certainly not.

I think the question needs context - Are you aiming to use it to syndicate content and expect an audience boost because your using RSS- then unlikely - but thats more to do with the state of blogging and syndication in general versus alternative publishing platforms such as facebook and medium.

Are you looking to use it for a syndication standard to base an implementation on for an app or tooling? If the later then you will find RSS has proven itself a rather nice spec that is utterly boring and stable - which is exactly what you want. It is not sexy, nor is it fashionable but it can be foundational - you can build on it and it does what the spec says. No one is likely to applaud your choice - its an old format but a goodie and if you coose to build on it for what its designed for then your likely to get the job done. If you dont like XML and prefer JSON - Manton Reece and Brent Simmons' JSONFeed also does a great job.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#134

Post by listenallyall »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #110

No, but I certainly don't find it as useful as it used to be. Used to be able to add newsfeeds to an RSS feeder and actually be able to read the news. Now the ticker is just the headline or one-to-two sentences, with a URL to the full article. Why bother with a bloody RSS feed if I'm gonna have to open my browser anyway?

For most sites, BazQux Reader (in my opinion, the absolute best RSS reader), can pull in the entire article even if the RSS feed only provides a headline or abbreviated version.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#137

Post by sdan »

reaperducer wrote: post #95

I think a lot of people think RSS is dead because they never see it promoted anywhere. Pretty much every web site has a row of social media icons, but hardly ever is there an RSS icon in the row, even if the web site supports it. Frankly, I don't think most people who run web sites even know that the framework/CMS/rolfburger they're using automatically publishes RSS feeds for them. Yesterday I stumbled across an app…

I think it’s Wordpress that enables /rss on a ton of websites.

I’ve recently needed to get RSS feeds and a good number of times I can find it via /rss or view the source of the site and search for xml.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#139

Post by smabie »

INTPenis wrote: post #99

I think I sort of take my internet access for granted. Because I never use RSS since at any time I can open a browser or an app and get the news. Imo there are two uses for RSS. 1) People who still scroll through a digest of news at certain times in their day. I envy these people for their disciplined habits. 2) And having a service that syncs news to your device via RSS for when you're not online.

Or 3) People who have realized that clicking around on different sites for news is a massive waste of time compared to having the news come to you.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#140

Post by smabie »

diablo1 wrote: post #4
totaldude87 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

care to list a few?!

No, but if you look around Hackernews there are plenty of blogs that have a high quality RSS feed. I'm not sharing my own personal preferences on here with others for privacy reasons. By high quality, I mean the content is exceptional and not blogspam and the content is updated regularly. Bonus points if the RSS feed is not a list of 'summaries' and includes the full content of each post. Even more bonus points if th…

Privacy reasons? You created your account 3 days ago and have a couple posts. Moreover, I don’t understand how mentioning blogs hurts your privacy.
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