Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

RSS Is Dying, and You Should Be Very Worried

camendesign.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 197 posts

Re: RSS Is Dying, and You Should Be Very Worried

#21

Post by glhaynes »

Alex3917 wrote: post #15
bretpiatt wrote: post #2

It is pretty clear why Google doesn't like RSS, it stops you from browsing the web and that is how they get paid. As a user though I also don't like it anymore and I'll share why... This isn't 1970 anymore where I want to read "What's New" from a small list of new sources. I prefer to go each day to a list of curated aggregators like HN or what the people I follow on Twitter or saying. This is vastly superior to RSS…

"I prefer to go each day to a list of curated aggregators like HN or what the people I follow on Twitter or saying. This is vastly superior to RSS" Vastly superior for looking well educated to others, less superior for actually understanding how the world works.

Maybe you could expound a bit on that?

Re: RSS Is Dying, and You Should Be Very Worried

#22

Post by Lagged2Death »

bretpiatt wrote: post #2

It is pretty clear why Google doesn't like RSS, it stops you from browsing the web and that is how they get paid. As a user though I also don't like it anymore and I'll share why... This isn't 1970 anymore where I want to read "What's New" from a small list of new sources. I prefer to go each day to a list of curated aggregators like HN or what the people I follow on Twitter or saying. This is vastly superior to RSS…

But most of the significant "curated aggregators" offer RSS feeds: http://news.ycombinator.com/rss

Re: RSS Is Dying, and You Should Be Very Worried

#23

Post by stanleydrew »

RSS isn't dying because browsers are deciding not to build native readers into their UIs. It's dying because it's not terribly easy to understand for most users. The article readily points this out.

And even for technical users like me, it isn't solving the main problem I have which is discovering new and interesting content. Sure, once I've found some new source of content it's nice to put its RSS feed into a reader. But really, bookmarking is pretty good too. Yes there are clear benefits to RSS over naked bookmarks, but the discoverability problem is still paramount.

Anyway this is kind of inconsequential to the point of whether native RSS functionality should be included in a browser. Mozilla is right to kill this "feature." RSS is an application-level protocol on top of HTTP, itself an application-level protocol. Browsers are built to perform HTTP requests. In my opinion they shouldn't do much else. A feature that displays and helps you manage RSS content falls into the category of bloat.

Re: RSS Is Dying, and You Should Be Very Worried

#24

Post by ianl »

corin_ wrote: post #20

I can't imagine that browser button pursuading anyone who doesn't already understand and appreciate RSS to start using it. Anyone tech-savvy enough to see it, and start googling to find out how to use it properly has certainly already heard of RSS. And on the other side, anyone who does use RSS, and anyone in the future who learns to use it, won't be put off using it by the loss of that button. The worse statement in…

3%-7% that use the button are most likely power users. It would be unwise to disenfranchise them as they are the ones who normally advocate your software to their friends (regular users).

Re: RSS Is Dying, and You Should Be Very Worried

#25

Post by groby_b »

bretpiatt wrote: post #2

It is pretty clear why Google doesn't like RSS, it stops you from browsing the web and that is how they get paid. As a user though I also don't like it anymore and I'll share why... This isn't 1970 anymore where I want to read "What's New" from a small list of new sources. I prefer to go each day to a list of curated aggregators like HN or what the people I follow on Twitter or saying. This is vastly superior to RSS…

Of course, there's the question of "Where do the curators get their news"....

HN contributions don't just materialize - they're often posted by people who scan large amounts of material. Via RSS, usually.

Then again, those users are certainly savvy enough to use RSS without a browser button.

Re: RSS Is Dying, and You Should Be Very Worried

#27

Post by corin_ »

ianl wrote: post #24
corin_ wrote: post #20

I can't imagine that browser button pursuading anyone who doesn't already understand and appreciate RSS to start using it. Anyone tech-savvy enough to see it, and start googling to find out how to use it properly has certainly already heard of RSS. And on the other side, anyone who does use RSS, and anyone in the future who learns to use it, won't be put off using it by the loss of that button. The worse statement in…

3%-7% that use the button are most likely power users. It would be unwise to disenfranchise them as they are the ones who normally advocate your software to their friends (regular users).

Sure, you could make an argument that 3%-7% is enough people to justify keeping the feature. Or you could make the argument that while it isn't enough, because they are the online non-shopping version of Alpha Consumers, it's worth keeping it to help get the browser promoted.

However you cannot argue that it has to be kept because every regular user wants this feature - statistics don't lie, clearly the majority of users don't care.

Re: RSS Is Dying, and You Should Be Very Worried

#28

Post by lftl »

ianl wrote: post #24
corin_ wrote: post #20

I can't imagine that browser button pursuading anyone who doesn't already understand and appreciate RSS to start using it. Anyone tech-savvy enough to see it, and start googling to find out how to use it properly has certainly already heard of RSS. And on the other side, anyone who does use RSS, and anyone in the future who learns to use it, won't be put off using it by the loss of that button. The worse statement in…

3%-7% that use the button are most likely power users. It would be unwise to disenfranchise them as they are the ones who normally advocate your software to their friends (regular users).

In chrome at least you can install a plugin to add an RSS icon to the URL bar. Easy enough for power users.
Post reply on HN