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I ditched the algorithm for RSS

joeyehand.com

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Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#261

Post by rollcat »

mattlutze wrote: post #227
Beijinger wrote: post #152

My buddy will soon offer an RSS reader. I will post it here. Yes, you can create an RSS feed from a Youtube Channel. You can can create an RSS feed from Reddit. You can't to my best knowledge create an RSS feed anymore from Twitter Newsletter to RSS: https://kill-the-newsletter.com/ More stuff: Blogs & RSS https://rssfeedasap.com/ https://code.rosaelefanten.org/rssparser.lisp/dir?ci=tip This one you have to pay. I am…

Does the world need another RSS reader/mousetrap? We already have so many. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=rss+readers What is your friend's idea to revolutionize with their new reader?

> Does the world need another RSS reader/mousetrap? We already have so many.

And we also have near-universal OPML import/export, so the cost of switching is minimised.

> What is your friend's idea to revolutionize with their new reader?

You don't need a revolution to make your app compelling, you just need to improve on status quo. RSS has a lot of shortcomings, most importantly discoverability.

Here's a simple idea: crowdsourced discovery. Users could opt-in to anonymously share their feed list (whole or parts); keyword-based categorisation could group them into topics; etc. The reader could use an algorithm (haha, we're coming full circle) to suggest interesting topics, feeds, posts. Honestly I'd be interested in something like https://kagi.com/smallweb/>.

Extra kudos if the dataset is released publicly.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#262

Post by fourside »

soapdog wrote: post #238
mattlutze wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the world need another RSS reader/mousetrap? We already have so many. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=rss+readers What is your friend's idea to revolutionize with their new reader?

Someone doesn't really need a reason to build something besides that they want to build it. I built many RSS readers and I was not trying to revolutionise anything, I was just having fun. This mindset of "revolution" and "disruption" will block you from actually just doing the things you want sometimes.

I guess it depends on the goal. If you just want to build things then you don’t need anyone’s permission, but if you want people to use it or to make a living off it, it’s important to know why people would use what you’re building.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#264

Post by rconti »

artisanspam wrote: post #119

I love RSS. I use RSS daily. I use link-aggregation websites like HN to find interesting authors and subscribe to any RSS feeds that they have. Highlights from my reader sync automatically into my Obsidian vault. It's great. But I know I, and everyone else posting in this thread, are in the minority. It's clear that most people prefer algorithmic drip in a walled garden. There's a reason everyone flocks to those plat…

Make it easier, probably. Even in the glory days of RSS I just never put in the effort to make it work for me. (sort of like how Twitter fans always told me I had to "curate" my feed better to make it less of a cesspool, but I actually just didn't care about randos yeeting random junk into the void).

Curating your feed requires a LOT of upfront investment, and then a nonzero amount of maintenance.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#266

Post by andrewla »

janalsncm wrote: post #185
andrewla wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the walled garden is a flawed metaphor. I would argue for Twitter over a spotty collection of RSS feeds just because there's ironically more of a democratic aspect -- anyone can start tweeting about whatever. They can go viral and disappear, they can gradually build an audience, etc. They can interact with followers or reply guys or stay aloof; they can recommend content and become a mini content aggregator i…

A lot of people don’t like the pay to play aspects of Twitter. EM also boosts his own tweets which is the ultimate pay to play. If you’re talking about the “following” feed that is also an “algorithm” albeit a simple one. But with injected ads it seems strictly worse than RSS.

My only response to this is that I don't like the even-more-pay-to-play aspects of RSS. To even up an RSS feed requires a commitment that is an effective bar for 99% of individuals that would be interested in participating in public discourse.

The "for you" feed is less transparent in its nature than the "following" feed, but is still extremely customized. I do see content from accounts that I don't follow, but the vast majority is from accounts that I do follow (or that I can reasonably believe were liked by accounts I follow, though that interaction is more hidden now).

I do wish there was a simpler way of "unliking" or "downprioritizing" a post or an account short of blocking/muting. You can do the "see less of this content" but it feels too subtle; I don't know what the actual effect of this is.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#267

Post by digest »

So this is why I built Digest (https://usedigest.com) -- the algorithms have stopped showing things of interest (my entire Instagram feed is full of memes instead of my friends posts), or things that cause you to doom scroll. We use RSS wherever we can to fetch data from sources to build your personalized digest, but if there is an API available we will use that too.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#268

Post by digest »

Beijinger wrote: post #152

My buddy will soon offer an RSS reader. I will post it here. Yes, you can create an RSS feed from a Youtube Channel. You can can create an RSS feed from Reddit. You can't to my best knowledge create an RSS feed anymore from Twitter Newsletter to RSS: https://kill-the-newsletter.com/ More stuff: Blogs & RSS https://rssfeedasap.com/ https://code.rosaelefanten.org/rssparser.lisp/dir?ci=tip This one you have to pay. I am…

We have an X (Twitter) option that does not rely on RSS. I think Nitter is dead anyway?

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#269

Post by bsnnkv »

domysee wrote: post #217
bsnnkv wrote: post #27

I am a big proponent of RSS, but I think that it suffers from a lack of imagination these days, for example, the "quality filter" approach mentioned in this article is not very useful imo. The biggest cost of RSS feed items as a consumer is figuring out whether something is worth reading. A lot of feeds these days don't provide anything useful in the body to make a determination on this, and others just dump the enti…

> The biggest cost of RSS feed items as a consumer is figuring out whether something is worth reading I'm working on an RSS feed reader, and it has a feature that solves that problem. For every subscribed feed, it shows the percentage of items that you actually bookmark and read. So if there are feeds that you subscribed to but don't read, you can easily find out which they are and unsubscribe from them. It's called…

The issue is that it's not possible to separate feeds from items. Even if some feeds are largely unread, I subscribed to them because I liked something they posted on a specific topic, and I still want to get updates whenever there is another feed item related to that specific topic. Ultimately the "feed" is the mechanism of delivery, but I don't think it should be the primary mode of categorizing item consumption.

I've worked on this issue a little in a different context, where you can follow posts from people on Bluesky related to specific topics, and this is ideally what I would like to be able to do more of with RSS.[1]

[1]: https://bsky.app/profile/lgug2z.com/post/3lc47yru7vc2k

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