I tend to add feeds only when the site doesn't generate either a significant number of comments or comments that are actually worth reading. Sites like HN I'm often as (or more) interested in the comments as in the actual article, so I'll just visit the site for that reason instead of using RSS.
The power of the RSS reader
11–20 of 84 posts
Re: The power of the RSS reader
#12I personally started using an RSS Reader to keep track of webcomics. Especially ones that update infrequently. Now they're all in one handy place and I never miss a panel.
Re: The power of the RSS reader
#13Personally, I have different labels. I have a high volume label that I nuke with impunity, then another label with low volume feeds that I treat more like Marco describes in tfa. This lets me keep up with all of those low volume feeds, but also skim the daily news when I have time. I also prune my feeds pretty aggressively. This is probably a much fiddlier setup than most people will want, but really so is any RSS re…
That's how I used to use Reader. One "Important" folder for stuff that I was very likely to read, and another for skimming.
It's a common complaint about Twitter that once you start following a few people who produce high volumes of crap, it becomes useless. The usual advice is to be quick to unfollow, but I've always missed a "must read" feature for Twitter, to specially mark those few people where you really do want to see every single tweet.
Re: The power of the RSS reader
#14Like many of the points but not following the conclusions because Google Reader doesn't aid long tail discovery...was just best place to subscribe post-discovery.
If the need for RSS reader remains, then others will simply fill the GR niche?
Re: The power of the RSS reader
#15I use to mess with rss and agree with Marco on the purpose of them. Then I found a better solution, just subscribe to some of the awesome curated newsletters out there that do all this for you. HN has one - http://hackernewsletter.com and Peter Cooper's tech focused ones (https://cooperpress.com/) keep you in the loop in a particular stack, plus a lot of others that I've seen.
Now I don't have to check anything these days, except my email, which of course I check everyday anyhow!
Re: The power of the RSS reader
#16Personally, I have different labels. I have a high volume label that I nuke with impunity, then another label with low volume feeds that I treat more like Marco describes in tfa. This lets me keep up with all of those low volume feeds, but also skim the daily news when I have time. I also prune my feeds pretty aggressively. This is probably a much fiddlier setup than most people will want, but really so is any RSS re…
That's how I used to use Reader. One "Important" folder for stuff that I was very likely to read, and another for skimming. It's a common complaint about Twitter that once you start following a few people who produce high volumes of crap, it becomes useless. The usual advice is to be quick to unfollow, but I've always missed a "must read" feature for Twitter, to specially mark those few people where you really do wan…
I'm playing with a couple of strategies: creating a list, and then viewing tweets on the list (which show up jumbled when the list is first created, but seem in order thereafter), and just having multiple accounts...
Re: The power of the RSS reader
#17This exactly matches my use case for RSS. High volume daily websites - like HN - I read directly. I went through a phase where I tried to read HN via RSS (in Google Reader) and for me it wasn't better than just hitting HN directly. But for the kind of sites Marco mentions (which I read most of, actually) that update on a semi-daily or weekly basis, RSS readers are perfect because I don't want to go and visit those pa…
Exactly. Most of the blogs I read are updated once a week or even once a month, but they have great content I don't want to miss. RSS allows me to not have those sites in my bookmarks but always get their latest content.
I've also used it for Craigslist searches and store updates when items go on sale, which are infrequent enough that I would miss them unless I checked every day.
I would like to use RSS to grab frequently updated tech news, but in a separate bucket that doesn't count as "unread". I'd rather strip out the site design and just focus on the content. That's what news is, right?
Re: The power of the RSS reader
#18For the same reason that I have 14000 messages in my inbox (half unread), this is bunk. Who cares if you can't read everything? OCD much.
Re: The power of the RSS reader
#19I use to mess with rss and agree with Marco on the purpose of them. Then I found a better solution, just subscribe to some of the awesome curated newsletters out there that do all this for you. HN has one - http://hackernewsletter.com and Peter Cooper's tech focused ones ( https://cooperpress.com/ ) keep you in the loop in a particular stack, plus a lot of others that I've seen. Now I don't have to check anything the…
That may be fine for some, but newsletters are inherently limited by the amount of space they are willing to provide to links, and by their domain, because most letters are topic-specific. While newsletters can support maybe 20 links per week, RSS is adept at handling hundreds if not thousands.
Moreover, one of the great benefits of RSS is that it is customizable and one's reading experience pertains specifically and only to them. With newsletters, one is throwing their reading experience to the mercy of the newsletter editor. This is not to say that newsletters aren't valuable. Their spontaneity and conciseness provides a great reading experience. (Although, I think Twitter is superior at this type of thing anyway.)
But, given the idiosyncrasies of newsletters, I just don't believe that they are tenable alternatives to RSS. Those who want to read a lot of content from an eclectic array of specific sources still need something like RSS.
Re: The power of the RSS reader
#20I never got into RSS readers, but I use Hacker News and Reddit for the purposes Marco is describing. I have Pulse on my phone set up to follow a handful of RSS feeds (Hacker News, The Verge, Daring Fireball, Ars Technica, etc.) so I have an easy way to see what's happening if I have a couple minutes to kill throughout my day.