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RSS not dead, just misunderstood

swizec.com

1–10 of 24 posts

Re: RSS not dead, just misunderstood

#2
Someone make an RSS reader for people. I think that's a good point; I've got too many subscriptions in my Google Reader, so many that I rarely access it: I feel overwhelmed.

I think there was a discussion on this in HN somewhere a week ago; someone suggested News Blur and it seemed a good solution although I haven't tried it out yet. http://www.newsblur.com/

Re: RSS not dead, just misunderstood

#3
How would a rss reader for people look like? Would it be able to rate/rank items accordingly to the probability that I'm going to like it?

The main problem with rss feeds is the same as with many other media formats: people try to meet the standard volume (at least x posts per week) even if they have nothing interesting to say. Most rss feeds suffer from the same problem that also hampers novels that have to be X pages long, movies that have to be 100 minutes long, or CDs that have to have a minimum play time etc. even though the quality of the material would suggest something shorter.

Re: RSS not dead, just misunderstood

#5
Feed Readers are like mailing lists. You have to scan the subjects and decide if you want to dive in. You don't have to read everything from everyone you subscribe to. Also Hacker News is for me a feed reader - I benefit from everyone else picking out good stuff for me to read and then I subscribe to that with RSS.

Re: RSS not dead, just misunderstood

#6
This whole 'death of RSS readers' thing is a real surprise to me - I connect to Bloglines every morning with my mobile (the browser is a bit pants, and Bloglines works better for me than Google Reader), and read interesting stuff on the train to work. When I find a blog post I enjoy on a site like HN, I add the blog to my blog-roll to sample future posts.

I find an aggregated set of articles all on one page much easier to consume, particularly when I'm going in and out of tunnels and losing signal - for that reason Twitter is of limited use to me since I'd have to repeatedly navigate links - not to mention the reduced load time and required number of clicks due to having the text all in one place.

Am I part of a dying breed? I thought mine was a fairly common scenario, at least among techies - talk about not looking outside my own four walls!

Re: RSS not dead, just misunderstood

#7

Someone make an RSS reader for people. I think that's a good point; I've got too many subscriptions in my Google Reader, so many that I rarely access it: I feel overwhelmed. I think there was a discussion on this in HN somewhere a week ago; someone suggested News Blur and it seemed a good solution although I haven't tried it out yet. http://www.newsblur.com/

Yep, I love RSS, but I don't ever read my feeds. Every feed reader in existence sucks. Fever sounds interesting, but I'm not going to fork over $30 for 'sounds interesting.'

I'm not sure if this is an inherent problem, or if it's just that everyone's scared of Google Reader, and RSS doesn't seem sexy anymore.

Re: RSS not dead, just misunderstood

#8
The problem with fast food is not the food, it's the way people use it. Once in a while - no problem. Every day - big problems.

The problem with RSS is not RSS, it's the way people use it. Add a few sites whose content is enough interest to you that you read everything they publish - RSS is awesome. Add every site you come across that might produce something you're interested in between stuff you don't care about - big problem. You've invented yourself a new daily chore, and, worse still, you think you've done yourself a favour by doing it.

Same with twitter, too. Follow crap-spouters and you'll think that twitter is nothing more than the what-I-had-for-lunch stereotype. Follow people who 'get it', and you'll be annoyed at that stereotype.

Re: RSS not dead, just misunderstood

#9
I run a sports news aggregation site. Before RSS existed it was very difficult to manage all of my sources because they would change so often. I now aggregate several thousand sources by myself and this wouldn't be doable without RSS.

Re: RSS not dead, just misunderstood

#10

This whole 'death of RSS readers' thing is a real surprise to me - I connect to Bloglines every morning with my mobile (the browser is a bit pants, and Bloglines works better for me than Google Reader), and read interesting stuff on the train to work. When I find a blog post I enjoy on a site like HN, I add the blog to my blog-roll to sample future posts. I find an aggregated set of articles all on one page much easi…

Perhaps you missed the articles where Bloglines is shutting their doors?

I agree, I don't think that the technology is going anywhere, as it's pretty much saturated with support on almost every blog / publishing platform, etc. I think that the idea of an 'RSS Reader' is dying might hold more weight, as there are a number of issues with RSS that nobody is really working to tackle (that I know of -- I personally am, but that's another conversation.)

You may consider switching to Google Reader in the interim, as I don't think it's going anywhere.

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