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RSS Is Better Than Twitter

gizmodo.com

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Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#71

Post by TheTruth1234 »

abhinai wrote: post #20

I completely understand and respect the author's sentiments. However, it is unfair to compare RSS to Twitter. Twitter is a place where anyone and everyone can express their opinions while RSS is a technology and a mechanism to get an updated feed from services and blogs we care about. Most of these blobs and services will be well written or perhaps professionally written articles. These are two very different systems…

>>> In short, RSS is a feed of (mostly) professionally written articles while Twitter is full of amateurs expressing half baked thoughts in 140 characters. It is unfair to compare the two.

Given that is true, isn't it "funny" that RSS is now non-existent compared to Twitter? ... I despair at the direction of the web.

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#72

Post by Glench »

kazinator wrote: post #62
Glench wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That feels kind of like a historical circumstance. I could easily imagine something based on RSS where people just express small blurbs like on Twitter. Heck, I've even thought about abandoning Twitter's UIs and creating RSS feeds for all the people I follow. At least then I'd be able to get chronological ordering and read/unread markers on tweets that way

An RSS feed is an XML file that lives under some URL. The RSS reader (or aggregator) polls that URL periodically and picks up new items that have appeared. It's like a web page, itemized into a very regular syntax. If you want to "tweet" using RSS, you need a URL somewhere where you can upload updates to XML content; then give people that URL. Either you have to join some website where content (like blogs) you create…

What part of my comment made it seem like I need to be educated about what RSS is? I think it would have felt nicer for you to inquire rather than just tell me what RSS is.

I’m saying that it’s easily possible to imagine a world where the uses of RSS vary from what they’re used for today — different from the parent commentor.

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#73

Post by superkuh »

alexmingoia wrote: post #53
Angostura wrote: post #41

Remember when Twitter offered RSS feeds? It made the service actually useful.

There’s a number of bridges from Twitter to RSS. I read Twitter in Feeder. See https://feeder.co/knowledge-base/rss-feed-creation/twitter-r...

But nothing you can do yourself without getting throttled by twitter.

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#74

Post by Digory »

mooreds wrote: post #15

I love RSS, and have for years. My first blog post ever was about RSS: http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/4 . I recently wrote that new developers should use RSS: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2019/03/25/use-an-rss-rea... But reading through the post and the comments here, I'm sensing an omission. What Twitter (and social media in general) provides that RSS doesn't is interaction . I don't login to twitte…

Has anyone tried to build conversation into RSS? An RSS item that is related or responsive to another RSS item?

(Or is that what Mastodon is trying to do?)

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#75

Post by pradn »

Openness on its own is not a significant competitive advantage. Twitter provides comments, retweets, and already has friends and celebrities.

RSS is still there on the publishing side for major publishers and all popular blog platforms. So why is it not as popular as email? Maybe individually visiting websites is good enough and maybe that itch is scratched by Twitter.

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#76

Post by iamphilrae »

y4mi wrote: post #50
ape4 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow I never knew. I would have used it if I knew.

The "rss support" was a folder, filled with links named after the article titles. It was good that it was removed, as it was useless to put it mildly

I actually used it considerably for my news site bookmarks on my bookmarks bar. It was great for just catching up on the day’s headline. It’s a feature I sorely miss.

Re: RSS Is Better Than Twitter

#78

Post by kazinator »

Glench wrote: post #72
kazinator wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An RSS feed is an XML file that lives under some URL. The RSS reader (or aggregator) polls that URL periodically and picks up new items that have appeared. It's like a web page, itemized into a very regular syntax. If you want to "tweet" using RSS, you need a URL somewhere where you can upload updates to XML content; then give people that URL. Either you have to join some website where content (like blogs) you create…

What part of my comment made it seem like I need to be educated about what RSS is? I think it would have felt nicer for you to inquire rather than just tell me what RSS is. I’m saying that it’s easily possible to imagine a world where the uses of RSS vary from what they’re used for today — different from the parent commentor.

Your comment didn't educate HN readers sufficiently; I thought it could use a technical backgrounder which could help others imagine the use cases and trade-offs. (I don't understand the Twitter architecture enough to add that for comparison, but perhaps many readers are more familiar with Twitter than RSS due to its popularity.)
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