4 ms·

I personally prefer RSS over mailed newsletters. And was expecting that newsletters will eventually die. I was wrong. Not sure why they didn't died and actually

I personally prefer RSS over mailed newsletters. And was expecting that newsletters will eventually die. I was wrong. Not sure why they didn't died and actually grow more popular, but IMHO RSS is probably too complicated for regular Joe, so they probably not even know RSS exists. I'm only subscribed to newsletter when RSS is not an option, like js weekly, android weekly... But wish I can read those in digg/reader too.

vollmond 10y ago
Yeah, I would assume newsletters have a lot higher chance to be read... everyone I know has an email account, but only a subset bother with RSS. And even if you have RSS, chances are you have a lot of feeds you never read that just end up part of the furniture of your life.
- nf05papsjfVbc 10y ago
  Also, it's much easier to track the average person's actions when you send them an email vs when they have an RSS feed. So, all these websites that show a 'sign up for my newsletter' popup when you visit them, will not choose the RSS option. I hate tracking URLs, pixels etc. but I don't see how we can get them to not use them.
- sanderjd 10y ago
  Maybe RSS should rebrand as "textcasting" or something. Podcasts are popular, are not considered only for "power users", and are just RSS feeds of audio links.
petercooper 10y ago
Editor of JavaScript Weekly here - we do have RSS :) It's linked on the top of our site. We just don't put a lot of effort into it because e-mail is our top priority, but it's been there for a few years now. (Ditto for all our titles like Ruby Weekly, DB Weekly, WebOps Weekly, etc.)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
angry-hacker 10y ago
It started when FB started to ask for money. People built huge following on social media and overnight the work was destroyed. You can "own" email list, but not your FB followers.

4 ms·

I personally prefer RSS over mailed newsletters. And was expecting that newsletters will eventually die. I was wrong. Not sure why they didn't died and actually

by finchisko 10y ago

vollmond 10y ago
Yeah, I would assume newsletters have a lot higher chance to be read... everyone I know has an email account, but only a subset bother with RSS. And even if you have RSS, chances are you have a lot of feeds you never read that just end up part of the furniture of your life.
- nf05papsjfVbc 10y ago
  Also, it's much easier to track the average person's actions when you send them an email vs when they have an RSS feed. So, all these websites that show a 'sign up for my newsletter' popup when you visit them, will not choose the RSS option. I hate tracking URLs, pixels etc. but I don't see how we can get them to not use them.
- sanderjd 10y ago
  Maybe RSS should rebrand as "textcasting" or something. Podcasts are popular, are not considered only for "power users", and are just RSS feeds of audio links.
petercooper 10y ago
Editor of JavaScript Weekly here - we do have RSS :) It's linked on the top of our site. We just don't put a lot of effort into it because e-mail is our top priority, but it's been there for a few years now. (Ditto for all our titles like Ruby Weekly, DB Weekly, WebOps Weekly, etc.)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
angry-hacker 10y ago
It started when FB started to ask for money. People built huge following on social media and overnight the work was destroyed. You can "own" email list, but not your FB followers.