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Making RSS More Fun

matduggan.com

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Re: Making RSS More Fun

#91

Post by teleforce »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #49
sebtron wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get the impression this person is using RSS reader wrong. Or is there really a culture of people you are using RSS like a youtube-channel, consuming everything from beginning to end? For me the purpose of RSS is to get the newest headlines, choose the interesting articles and skip the rest. This means there is a limited list of items to check each day, and a finishing line. Why would the author's use be the wrong…

RSS has been traditionally used like an email client rather than a streaming service. You don't read every email, some go straight to spam or the trash bin. RSS is a time saver, not a time waster. I can see that some feeds, like serializartions or low-volume/high quality content, is desirable to be consumed in its entirety, but the 80/20 principle seems to also apply to RSS feeds too in general. Specially if your RSS…

>RSS is a time saver, not a time waster

To me, this is the best quote of the year, thanks.

>RSS has been traditionally used like an email client rather than a streaming service

This is very similar to batch vs streaming argument where we have lambda, kappa and the latest "batch" is the special case of streaming data architecture. I have a very strong feeling that batch and streaming are the two sides of the same coin. Only by this realization that we can transform Kafka [1].

Perhaps better RSS client can be the killer application of this new unified data oriented batch and streaming architecture or I coined it coin architecture (pardon the pun).

[1] What If We Could Rebuild Kafka from Scratch? (220 comments):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43790420

Re: Making RSS More Fun

#92

Post by mukti »

turoczy wrote: post #27
N3mor wrote: post #24

I love this - thank you for your work! Stumble Upon was one of those sites that I trully enjoyed. I'm glad to see something similar. I wish someone would develop a spiritual successor to DIGG.

Totally agree. Very much a throwback to StumbleUpon in the best way. And more directed given that we get to choose the focus of the content.

You can kinda get a similar experience to StumbleUpon with marginalia's explore mode - https://marginalia-search.com/explore

Re: Making RSS More Fun

#93

Post by socalgal2 »

I don't know if it would work, but, I imagined a Youtube like inteface to blogs. The front page would be algorithmically selected blog posts. You could "Subscribe" and like you can with channels on Youtube. You could mark a post as "read", "not interested", "never recommend this channel" etc....

Note: I specifically mean a grid of thumbnails to posts when I say "youtube like".

Re: Making RSS More Fun

#94

Post by alsetmusic »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #7

> I rarely want to read all of a websites content from beginning to end I get the impression this person is using RSS reader wrong. Or is there really a culture of people you are using RSS like a youtube-channel, consuming everything from beginning to end? For me the purpose of RSS is to get the newest headlines, choose the interesting articles and skip the rest. This means there is a limited list of items to check e…

> For me the purpose of RSS is to get the newest headlines, choose the interesting articles and skip the rest.

That's the only way I ever conceived of it.

What the author describes is unappealing to me. I choose my RSS feeds deliberately. I sort them into five categories, only two of which are must-view. Around half the articles from those two will be worth reading and I want to know that I didn't miss anything from either one. The rest is there for when I have extra time to kill while standing in line at the store, waiting for an elevator, etc.

If everything is random, I'll never know if I missed the one article that would have been the most important to me.

Re: Making RSS More Fun

#95

Post by xeonmc »

socalgal2 wrote: post #93

I don't know if it would work, but, I imagined a Youtube like inteface to blogs. The front page would be algorithmically selected blog posts. You could "Subscribe" and like you can with channels on Youtube. You could mark a post as "read", "not interested", "never recommend this channel" etc.... Note: I specifically mean a grid of thumbnails to posts when I say "youtube like".

could potentially build it as an Atproto appview, everybody publishes their blog feed url on their PDS and the appview pulls updates from the firehose based on your recommendation preference.

Re: Making RSS More Fun

#96

Post by mk12 »

8organicbits wrote: post #44

> I need to sort stuff into categories so that you get more stuff in genres you like I'm also trying to figure out that problem. The challenge I've seen is that RSS feeds rarely use the category field. I did notice people doing hashtags in the description field (maybe they POSSE to Mastodon or X) so I parse those out in a crawler I built [1], but theres still so much uncategorized content. In my personal feed I aim t…

I have a few different types of content on my website and wanted to offer both individual feeds and a combined feed, so I was disappointed that nothing seems to support the category tag. I settled for prefixing the titles in the combined feed, e.g. "[Blog]" for blog posts.

Re: Making RSS More Fun

#97

Post by yencabulator »

PaulHoule wrote: post #47
PurpleRamen wrote: post #7

> I rarely want to read all of a websites content from beginning to end I get the impression this person is using RSS reader wrong. Or is there really a culture of people you are using RSS like a youtube-channel, consuming everything from beginning to end? For me the purpose of RSS is to get the newest headlines, choose the interesting articles and skip the rest. This means there is a limited list of items to check e…

To praise TikTok it has a highly effective recommendation engine precisely because it is showing you one piece of content at a time and registering your engagement on that. YouTube's interface gives people a feeling of agency because it tempts you with 10 or so videos on the side and you can choose one, it also means YouTube does not get information about the 9 you didn't click, maybe you would have liked 5 of them a…

> YouTube does not get information about the 9 you didn't click, maybe you would have liked 5 of them

Meanwhile, I end up with 5 new tabs open...

Re: Making RSS More Fun

#98

Post by manuelmoreale »

mrandish wrote: post #86
manuelmoreale wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spirit of the 90s is still here. There are still many, many people who are happy to have a space on the web and share what they’re passionate about or what is in their heads simply because they enjoy the process. It’s not an all-or-nothing scenario. The two things can coexist. Some people will pursuit monetization, others are happy to share for the sake of sharing. It comes down to individual choices.

> The spirit of the 90s is still here "Dream of the '90s" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4hShMEk1Ew )

So funny that if I click the link I get a “not available in your country”

Re: Making RSS More Fun

#99

Post by Animats »

What I want, as a user experience, is something akin to TikTok.

That makes more sense with TikTok frivolous content than with RSS feeds. If you've got Reuters, the BBC, AP and New York Times RSS feeds coming in, you need something that's more content aware and will group items together by subject.

Re: Making RSS More Fun

#100

Post by port11 »

Isofarro wrote: post #52

The idea that you have to read everything is a reader UI design flaw. By presenting feeds as an inbox, it gives the impression of RSS feeds being email. And that's not right, it can be, but it doesn't have to be. The TikTok model is about scrolling, skipping, being selective. RSS readers should be treated the same way. "River of news" is an RSS thing. You dive in when stuff interests you, and you let what doesn't int…

I prefer the inbox to the river. It's not that difficult to scan my (categorised) inbox and “mark all as read” for a given feed.

But then again, I don't subscribe to too many things, and quickly unsubscribe from feeds that publish too often. There is a blog for fathers that publishes every day. No, thanks, I need to digest what I've read last week.

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