4 ms·

I suspect you might be right. Personally, I think the main reason RSS failed to get bigger adoption was a UX problem. Clicking on RSS and getting a page of cod

by mceoin 9y ago

I suspect you might be right. Personally, I think the main reason RSS failed to get bigger adoption was a UX problem. Clicking on RSS and getting a page of code is just too confronting for most people. Thus it never managed to get the same adoption as other republishing buttons like Pin, Like or Share.

bob9 9y ago
If you click on RSS in a browser, you're presented with a HTML rendering of the feed. What browser or messaging application (Thunderbird and friends) doesn't do this?
giobox 9y ago
Safari in Mac OS X did a pretty nice job of rendering the feed for a basic feed reader back when it still had the big blue RSS link button in the URL bar, no raw XML to speak of: https://www.askdavetaylor.com/0-blog-pics/safari-rss-view.jpg https://www.askdavetaylor.com/0-blog-pics/safari-rss-view.jp... I used to use this A LOT back in the day, often finding it preferable to many site's native UIs.
lj3 9y ago
Hell, just finding the RSS feed on some sites is like going on a scavenger hunt. I really wish the html spec itself had a standardized way of defining the rss file for a site, like they do for favicon.
- bob9 9y ago
  Don't sites put it in the HTML meta headers anymore? This is then picked up by the browser and displayed under the feed icon/menu.
- hopesthoughts 9y ago
  I use the RSS feed finder user script. If it really can't find it, I use the feed autodetect bookmarklet. Both work well for me.
- explainplease 9y ago
  It does. In the HEAD, LINK tags with REL="alternate" and TYPE="application/rss+xml" (or "atom" instead of "rss").
kazinator 9y ago
The main problem with RSS is that it is simply not discoverable. The related UX problem is that major browsers didn't have a built-in reader, so there is nothing with which to discover RSS. To use RSS, you have to get some add-on like Brief for FireFox, or third-party app for Android. Or else use some website like Google Reader (I think that's dead now?). Before you do that, in the first place, you have to know what the heck RSS is, and what are the benefits: why should you be installing this additional stuff for interacting with some hidden aspect of the web. Browsers need to make it discoverable by alerting users, like by bringing up a bubble: "Hey, user! This web page's updating listings are available in a condensed RSS feed [learn more.] You can register the feed into my built-in feed reader, and then not only browse the items conveniently, but be alerted of new ones, search through the items, and delete ones you don't want."* When we were recently looking, on Craigslist, for a bunch of different types of items simultaneously, I showed my wife RSS. From the beginning: how it is the condensed version of a web-site, and how you need a program to deal with it (went through an installation of Brief on Firefox). Then how you add feeds to the reader, and go look at them through the Brief toolbar button, etc. Then configuration: explaining how Brief just surfs the RSS periodically the same way that a human being refreshes a web page, and that the frequency can be configured, as well as how long the items are stored. So after that she was using it daily, no problem, and mostly liking the convenience of just checking the feeds for what has dripped in, and being able to erase the duds, as if it were an e-mail inbox.
- rabboRubble 9y ago
  > not discoverable.... How is going to a 3rd party site like Google Reader (yes, it's dead and damn Google for killing it) any less discoverable than going to WaPo or Facebook? I make a conscience effort to go consume these sites. I made a conscience decision to consume my information from Google Reader. Or it's replacement. RSS buttons are (were?) right along side Facebook, Twitter, Google+ buttons 10 years ago. Not that difficult. If Facebook suddenly announced an RSS component to their service, people would use it. I know when Google reader dropped their Google Reader service, there was a hue and cry about it. Google said the usage numbers were flat. I suspect in great part because Google's lessor products come and go all the damn time. If the product is not integrated into Gmail or YouTube, 99.9% of their user base does not know of the service's existence.

by mceoin 9y ago

bob9 9y ago

If you click on RSS in a browser, you're presented with a HTML rendering of the feed. What browser or messaging application (Thunderbird and friends) doesn't do this?

giobox 9y ago

Safari in Mac OS X did a pretty nice job of rendering the feed for a basic feed reader back when it still had the big blue RSS link button in the URL bar, no raw XML to speak of: https://www.askdavetaylor.com/0-blog-pics/safari-rss-view.jpg https://www.askdavetaylor.com/0-blog-pics/safari-rss-view.jp... I used to use this A LOT back in the day, often finding it preferable to many site's native UIs.

lj3 9y ago

Hell, just finding the RSS feed on some sites is like going on a scavenger hunt. I really wish the html spec itself had a standardized way of defining the rss file for a site, like they do for favicon.

bob9 9y ago
Don't sites put it in the HTML meta headers anymore? This is then picked up by the browser and displayed under the feed icon/menu.
hopesthoughts 9y ago
I use the RSS feed finder user script. If it really can't find it, I use the feed autodetect bookmarklet. Both work well for me.
explainplease 9y ago
It does. In the HEAD, LINK tags with REL="alternate" and TYPE="application/rss+xml" (or "atom" instead of "rss").

kazinator 9y ago

The main problem with RSS is that it is simply not discoverable. The related UX problem is that major browsers didn't have a built-in reader, so there is nothing with which to discover RSS. To use RSS, you have to get some add-on like Brief for FireFox, or third-party app for Android. Or else use some website like Google Reader (I think that's dead now?). Before you do that, in the first place, you have to know what the heck RSS is, and what are the benefits: why should you be installing this additional stuff for interacting with some hidden aspect of the web. Browsers need to make it discoverable by alerting users, like by bringing up a bubble: "Hey, user! This web page's updating listings are available in a condensed RSS feed [learn more.] You can register the feed into my built-in feed reader, and then not only browse the items conveniently, but be alerted of new ones, search through the items, and delete ones you don't want."* When we were recently looking, on Craigslist, for a bunch of different types of items simultaneously, I showed my wife RSS. From the beginning: how it is the condensed version of a web-site, and how you need a program to deal with it (went through an installation of Brief on Firefox). Then how you add feeds to the reader, and go look at them through the Brief toolbar button, etc. Then configuration: explaining how Brief just surfs the RSS periodically the same way that a human being refreshes a web page, and that the frequency can be configured, as well as how long the items are stored. So after that she was using it daily, no problem, and mostly liking the convenience of just checking the feeds for what has dripped in, and being able to erase the duds, as if it were an e-mail inbox.

rabboRubble 9y ago
> not discoverable.... How is going to a 3rd party site like Google Reader (yes, it's dead and damn Google for killing it) any less discoverable than going to WaPo or Facebook? I make a conscience effort to go consume these sites. I made a conscience decision to consume my information from Google Reader. Or it's replacement. RSS buttons are (were?) right along side Facebook, Twitter, Google+ buttons 10 years ago. Not that difficult. If Facebook suddenly announced an RSS component to their service, people would use it. I know when Google reader dropped their Google Reader service, there was a hue and cry about it. Google said the usage numbers were flat. I suspect in great part because Google's lessor products come and go all the damn time. If the product is not integrated into Gmail or YouTube, 99.9% of their user base does not know of the service's existence.