41–50 of 81 posts
It’s probably more Instagrams fault than rsshub’s that it was breaking. Just be aware of these limitations.
I'm pleased to see renewed interest in RSS (web feeds generally). But my concern is that, for first time users, the onboarding process is too complex. There are too many unexplained steps, and the benefits are unclear. A plug for my own answer to this: I recently launched https://aboutfeeds.com -- a one pager "getting started" guide aimed at first-time users of web feeds/RSS. The goal is to have it linked next to eve…
My belief is that, in order for RSS / ATOM to really catch on, we need to completely abstract those concepts for the end-user.
In my opinion, getting people to care about RSS / ATOM is like getting them to care about HTTP. They do not care about the actual mechanisms - only the end result. That being said, I think all we're missing is GREAT product design. Too many pipes are still exposed and it scares away the average user.
Make webfeeds as intuitive as social media giants and we have a revolution on our hands :p
PS: would love to build this with someone if there's any takers :)
My email client is actually much more powerful than most readers in letting me capture read status and labels / sorting.
I'm pleased to see renewed interest in RSS (web feeds generally). But my concern is that, for first time users, the onboarding process is too complex. There are too many unexplained steps, and the benefits are unclear. A plug for my own answer to this: I recently launched https://aboutfeeds.com -- a one pager "getting started" guide aimed at first-time users of web feeds/RSS. The goal is to have it linked next to eve…
You are 100% correct with this. But not only that is the problem. There are too many sites that don't offer obvious RSS feeds. Like YouTube. I don't have a google account, but I still want to follow some channels. What would be the best way? Right RSS, but YouTube doesn't offer that really obviously. So here is how you follow a youtube channel with RSS:
1) Klick on a YouTube Video from a channel you want to follow
2) From there click on the youtube channel (Doesn't work if you directly click on the channel from the serach)
3) Then you have the url " rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/ (for example colinfurze's channel ID would be UCp68_FLety0O-n9QU6phsgw
4) Now the last thing left is combine that channel ID with the following: " rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id= and add it to your RSS feed! (For example the full colinfurze url would be: https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCp68_FL... ) Easy, isn't it? :)
I'm pleased to see renewed interest in RSS (web feeds generally). But my concern is that, for first time users, the onboarding process is too complex. There are too many unexplained steps, and the benefits are unclear. A plug for my own answer to this: I recently launched https://aboutfeeds.com -- a one pager "getting started" guide aimed at first-time users of web feeds/RSS. The goal is to have it linked next to eve…
>There are too many unexplained steps, and the benefits are unclear. You are 100% correct with this. But not only that is the problem. There are too many sites that don't offer obvious RSS feeds. Like YouTube. I don't have a google account, but I still want to follow some channels. What would be the best way? Right RSS, but YouTube doesn't offer that really obviously. So here is how you follow a youtube channel with…
Someone at my company wanted to use RSShub for turning Instagram into an RSS feed. This kept breaking, because rsshub just scrapes Instagram profiles on the web and Instagram pushes its users to the app. It’s probably more Instagrams fault than rsshub’s that it was breaking. Just be aware of these limitations.
I'm pleased to see renewed interest in RSS (web feeds generally). But my concern is that, for first time users, the onboarding process is too complex. There are too many unexplained steps, and the benefits are unclear. A plug for my own answer to this: I recently launched https://aboutfeeds.com -- a one pager "getting started" guide aimed at first-time users of web feeds/RSS. The goal is to have it linked next to eve…
I completely agree genmon! RSS / web feeds are a bit hard to grok for the average user. My belief is that, in order for RSS / ATOM to really catch on, we need to completely abstract those concepts for the end-user. In my opinion, getting people to care about RSS / ATOM is like getting them to care about HTTP. They do not care about the actual mechanisms - only the end result. That being said, I think all we're missin…
I think basically you want reddit's early marketing, "the front page of the web". Except it's your front page. It's a feed where you can go to see the latest stuff from everywhere you're interested in, rather than having to check each site individually. Like how one's reddit home page shows posts from all the different subreddits to which one is subscribed.
I think the best entry point is probably the browser, like Firefox's "top sites" on about:home. The browser is uniquely positioned to know what sites you frequent. If it also knows where to find those sites' rss feeds, it could automatically suggest adding them (also on the home page or similar). Once you've got that -- people actually using it -- you're over the hump, and it's easy enough to for users to transition to curating their feeds, using a different application, etc
I'm pleased to see renewed interest in RSS (web feeds generally). But my concern is that, for first time users, the onboarding process is too complex. There are too many unexplained steps, and the benefits are unclear. A plug for my own answer to this: I recently launched https://aboutfeeds.com -- a one pager "getting started" guide aimed at first-time users of web feeds/RSS. The goal is to have it linked next to eve…
I completely agree genmon! RSS / web feeds are a bit hard to grok for the average user. My belief is that, in order for RSS / ATOM to really catch on, we need to completely abstract those concepts for the end-user. In my opinion, getting people to care about RSS / ATOM is like getting them to care about HTTP. They do not care about the actual mechanisms - only the end result. That being said, I think all we're missin…
What’s unusually about the feed ecosystem is that it was once popular, and now it’s present but nobody really understands it. Like, Wordpress sites are 30% of the web and they have RSS by default... but are the site owners really aware? It would be a hard push to get any of them to change.
And, for most technologies, the existing users are the best word of mouth evangelists. But here, the existing users have their own favourite apps, and if you change anything too much then they won’t evangelise.
So (imo) growing the ecosystem means finding ways that respect that situation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I completely agree genmon! RSS / web feeds are a bit hard to grok for the average user. My belief is that, in order for RSS / ATOM to really catch on, we need to completely abstract those concepts for the end-user. In my opinion, getting people to care about RSS / ATOM is like getting them to care about HTTP. They do not care about the actual mechanisms - only the end result. That being said, I think all we're missin…
> RSS / web feeds are a bit hard to grok for the average user. I think basically you want reddit's early marketing, "the front page of the web". Except it's your front page. It's a feed where you can go to see the latest stuff from everywhere you're interested in, rather than having to check each site individually. Like how one's reddit home page shows posts from all the different subreddits to which one is subscribe…
The current UX, at least on my iPhone, is that I go to a site that looks like it _probably_ has a feed, and then I use the share sheet to push that URL to NetNewsWire. Then RSS auto-discovery takes over.
But there are a growing number of sites that look like they _should_ have feeds (posts on the front page arranged chronologically) but don’t. And the user experience is simply terrible when you attempt to subscribe with auto-discovery and it silently fails.
The problem is getting that in-browser glowing button on mobile. Browsers are too locked down.