Can someone please explain why some people don't like RSS feeds? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can someone please explain why some people don't like RSS feeds?

#11

Post by Concours » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 6:57 AM UTC

Disclosure: I run http://www.feedsapi.com , a service that makes RSS a must-have .

I don't think RSS is dying and I also don't think people don't like it, it's just a complex technology for the average Joe to use, so let me try to elaborate. You need an RSS reader to use RSS, a techguy can just move on download rssowl, rssbandit...etc or use google reader, the average Joe has never heard of RSS bandit, has no clue how no clue how to use RSS on a computer and needing to download a new software or signup to another service to take advantage of RSS is another entry barrier for many people, so that's actually the main problem IMHO. Of course you have many publications with a crap user experience on their RSS full of Ads and truncated feeds ( I run a service http://www.feedsapi.com that fix both issues) , butnthere are many services to fix that.

In contrast, the entry barrier for rss on smartphone is very low, users download an RSS reader and they are ready to go. I mean, flipboard, Sparse RSS Pro, Pulse, Reeder...etc, are nothing else than RSS readers and they are very popular on all platforms ( android, iOs, windowsphone....) and the average joe tend to love them as well, so I think RSS just need more time to fully reach the average Joe. Social Media is no replacement for RSS, I don't get why people tend to compare both, it feels like comparing oranges to apples.

P.S. sorry for my english, not a native speaker.

Re: Can someone please explain why some people don't like RSS feeds?

#12

Post by whichdan » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 3:56 AM UTC

saurik wrote: post #10

georgemcbay wrote: post #9

RSS would be fantastic but the vast majority of sites that still bother to offer it gimp the crap out of their RSS feeds for advertising purposes (eg. RSS feed only gives tiny snippets of the full content and a link to the site so you'll click through and they'll get advertising views), making it basically worthless.

Many things would be fantastic if they didn't have a fatal flaw; for RSS, it is that the mechanism, while something no one seems willing to pay for (a la $1/month to subscribe via RSS), is designed to undermine the only monetization model content producers normally can manage.

I wonder if anyone's tried tackling an "RSS feed store" the same way app stores work? Being able to easily add and remove $1/mo subscriptions would be quite nice, especially with a $10/yr option.

Re: Can someone please explain why some people don't like RSS feeds?

#13

Post by shyn3 » Wed, Jul 11, 2012, 12:24 PM UTC

RSS doesn't get any love from companies who use it. They never advertise it.

I think it stems from the following:

1) People want full-text feeds including images, video, and audio. Companies try to get the user to come to their site so there isn't an incentive to advertise this option if you are using full-text whereas if you aren't you probably don't have as many users subscribing.

2) Sometimes you can't tell how many people are coming from a certain feed from a certain source. If you have full-page feeds and someone is using a web-based service that stores the feeds instead of querying for each user the website may never know that an article was read.

I think there needs to be a way to measure feed reach in order to increase adoption for such an awesome technology.