4 ms·

RSS isn't dying because browsers are deciding not to build native readers into their UIs. It's dying because it's not terribly easy to understand for most users

RSS isn't dying because browsers are deciding not to build native readers into their UIs. It's dying because it's not terribly easy to understand for most users. The article readily points this out. And even for technical users like me, it isn't solving the main problem I have which is discovering new and interesting content. Sure, once I've found some new source of content it's nice to put its RSS feed into a reader. But really, bookmarking is pretty good too. Yes there are clear benefits to RSS over naked bookmarks, but the discoverability problem is still paramount. Anyway this is kind of inconsequential to the point of whether native RSS functionality should be included in a browser. Mozilla is right to kill this "feature." RSS is an application-level protocol on top of HTTP, itself an application-level protocol. Browsers are built to perform HTTP requests. In my opinion they shouldn't do much else. A feature that displays and helps you manage RSS content falls into the category of bloat.

sudont 16y ago
> Sure, once I've found some new source of content it's nice to put its RSS feed into a reader This is why most linkblogs are now twitter feeds. Even Andy Baio’s is still a subset of what he twitters. My problem in RSS feeds is importance, some sort of metric of popularity would be good. A lot of times I’ll remove a feed for curatorial purposes to have that site drop some major project that goes viral, and I then find out several weeks later. The entire concept of RSS is somewhat flawed for what happens in the real world. It would be a lot better to create some XML encapsulation of what the front page of the NYT does in terms of curatorial importance.
- macrael 16y ago
  I know the rss reader fever (by Shaun Inman) tries to do something like this.
  - xenomachina 16y ago
    As does Google Reader's "Sort by magic" (under "View settings").
- jerf 16y ago
  "It would be a lot better to create some XML encapsulation of what the front page of the NYT does in terms of curatorial importance." RSS would be a critical tool for anyone trying to solve that problem. A lot of the complaints here are that RSS isn't what RSS isn't. OK, that's great, but those are more "entrepreneurial opportunities" than problems with RSS. Toss out RSS (and I assume by extension Atom and all similar friends) and those opportunities recede, they recede a lot, they don't get better. It is what it is and it has always been designed from day one to be a foundational infrastructure on top of which to build more things, not the Final Answer To All Problems.
  - sudont 16y ago
    RSS is strictly linear, largely chronological. The NYT front page, while changing day-to-day still has a layout that embodies importance. There needs to be some sort of semantic interpretation of how important something is other than h1’s. How do we replicate the 144pt super-important headings while removing presentation from content? The web was built for rationalist minds and papers, and the separation of html elements furthers this goal, yet hampers any sort of human-ness of communication. RSS is great for a blog, but bad for newspapers. Check out NYT’s RSS feed. Every article ticks in at an equal level of importance and requires the viewer’s mental acuity to discern what’s #1. Not so with their web-front or printed sheet. Syndication, while essential, needs to be extended.
    - jerf 16y ago
      It also has to be some sort of project that uses RSS, not something built into an RSS-replacement. It requires some sort of third-party interaction with your input to determine "importance". Leave it to the New York Times and at best their decisions about importance merely won't match yours; at worse they'll simply label everything "important", sort of like the way my HR department seems to reflexively tick that box in Outlook regardless of whether open enrollment is about to close or somebody's parking job is a bit off and could they please correct it?
      - sudont 16y ago
frou_dh 16y ago
> And even for technical users like me, [RSS] isn't solving the main problem I have which is discovering new and interesting content. I have no expectation for it to solve that. It serves its purpose well. I'm thankful for widespread RSS and love using it.
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  To be clear I have no expectation for RSS to solve the discoverability problem either, and I think RSS/Atom/PubSubHubbub is very useful. I'm just noting why I believe they aren't heavily used by most people, and in particular, me.
dkarl 16y ago
The concept of RSS itself, like any other piece of technology, is not something users should understand directly. What RSS lacks is a simple, friendly concept to act as its public face. The ways people have explained RSS in the past have been daunting, unappealing, or inappropriate for the web. "Subscription" is the most common term used, probably because it is a reference to the underlying technology (publish/subscribe) and to a vaguely similar concept in userland (subscribing to a publication.) But subscription is not a good metaphor. Subscriptions do not lessen your commitment; they increase it. Having a bunch of magazine subscriptions is a burden! They fill up your mailbox and clutter up your apartment. A "subscribe" button scares people away because it evokes a much more consequential decision; the user wonders if it is worthwhile to commit to this burden. And of course subscription is not the only way to use RSS. What web sites and browsers need to do is simply SAY in their UI what the RSS features do, without saying "RSS" and without trying to train users to recognize the RSS symbol. I am not a UI designer, but I think the word we're looking for is "updates." Buttons should say: "Show me recent updates to this site" "Show me future updates to this topic" "I want to see future updates to this site" The button to show your RSS feeds should say "Updates" and should have a tooltip saying "Updates to your web sites." To help people discover this functionality, I think it would be great for browsers to check for RSS feeds on the sites a user goes to frequently and work that into the UI somehow. When you open Chrome and see thumbnails of your favorite sites, each thumbnail might have a button saying, "Recent updates...." And there's one simple feature that people would easily figure out and would actually use. When you're on a site that has an RSS feed, there could be a little pop-over button in a corner (like the button added by Feedly's Firefox plugin) that you can click to see a list of recent updates to a site. It's a simple feature, some people would figure it out for themselves, and anyone could grasp how it worked after seeing it used once or twice. It would put pressure on websites to provide good RSS feeds, because they would know many users were checking them. Here's a tip: put the words "Recent updates" on the button. tl;dr Don't say RSS, don't use a symbol, don't say "subscribe" or "subscription," just use the word "updates" and say what you mean.
- danenania 16y ago
  Good ideas. Even though the article severely exaggerates, I agree that the browser is the ideal integration point for rss from a ux point of view, but the implementation needs to be totally reimagined for it to appeal to a mass audience.

sudont 16y ago

> Sure, once I've found some new source of content it's nice to put its RSS feed into a reader This is why most linkblogs are now twitter feeds. Even Andy Baio’s is still a subset of what he twitters. My problem in RSS feeds is importance, some sort of metric of popularity would be good. A lot of times I’ll remove a feed for curatorial purposes to have that site drop some major project that goes viral, and I then find out several weeks later. The entire concept of RSS is somewhat flawed for what happens in the real world. It would be a lot better to create some XML encapsulation of what the front page of the NYT does in terms of curatorial importance.

macrael 16y ago
I know the rss reader fever (by Shaun Inman) tries to do something like this.
- xenomachina 16y ago
  As does Google Reader's "Sort by magic" (under "View settings").
jerf 16y ago
"It would be a lot better to create some XML encapsulation of what the front page of the NYT does in terms of curatorial importance." RSS would be a critical tool for anyone trying to solve that problem. A lot of the complaints here are that RSS isn't what RSS isn't. OK, that's great, but those are more "entrepreneurial opportunities" than problems with RSS. Toss out RSS (and I assume by extension Atom and all similar friends) and those opportunities recede, they recede a lot, they don't get better. It is what it is and it has always been designed from day one to be a foundational infrastructure on top of which to build more things, not the Final Answer To All Problems.
- sudont 16y ago
  RSS is strictly linear, largely chronological. The NYT front page, while changing day-to-day still has a layout that embodies importance. There needs to be some sort of semantic interpretation of how important something is other than h1’s. How do we replicate the 144pt super-important headings while removing presentation from content? The web was built for rationalist minds and papers, and the separation of html elements furthers this goal, yet hampers any sort of human-ness of communication. RSS is great for a blog, but bad for newspapers. Check out NYT’s RSS feed. Every article ticks in at an equal level of importance and requires the viewer’s mental acuity to discern what’s #1. Not so with their web-front or printed sheet. Syndication, while essential, needs to be extended.
  - jerf 16y ago
    It also has to be some sort of project that uses RSS, not something built into an RSS-replacement. It requires some sort of third-party interaction with your input to determine "importance". Leave it to the New York Times and at best their decisions about importance merely won't match yours; at worse they'll simply label everything "important", sort of like the way my HR department seems to reflexively tick that box in Outlook regardless of whether open enrollment is about to close or somebody's parking job is a bit off and could they please correct it?
    - sudont 16y ago

frou_dh 16y ago

> And even for technical users like me, [RSS] isn't solving the main problem I have which is discovering new and interesting content. I have no expectation for it to solve that. It serves its purpose well. I'm thankful for widespread RSS and love using it.

stanleydrew 16y ago
To be clear I have no expectation for RSS to solve the discoverability problem either, and I think RSS/Atom/PubSubHubbub is very useful. I'm just noting why I believe they aren't heavily used by most people, and in particular, me.

dkarl 16y ago

The concept of RSS itself, like any other piece of technology, is not something users should understand directly. What RSS lacks is a simple, friendly concept to act as its public face. The ways people have explained RSS in the past have been daunting, unappealing, or inappropriate for the web. "Subscription" is the most common term used, probably because it is a reference to the underlying technology (publish/subscribe) and to a vaguely similar concept in userland (subscribing to a publication.) But subscription is not a good metaphor. Subscriptions do not lessen your commitment; they increase it. Having a bunch of magazine subscriptions is a burden! They fill up your mailbox and clutter up your apartment. A "subscribe" button scares people away because it evokes a much more consequential decision; the user wonders if it is worthwhile to commit to this burden. And of course subscription is not the only way to use RSS. What web sites and browsers need to do is simply SAY in their UI what the RSS features do, without saying "RSS" and without trying to train users to recognize the RSS symbol. I am not a UI designer, but I think the word we're looking for is "updates." Buttons should say: "Show me recent updates to this site" "Show me future updates to this topic" "I want to see future updates to this site" The button to show your RSS feeds should say "Updates" and should have a tooltip saying "Updates to your web sites." To help people discover this functionality, I think it would be great for browsers to check for RSS feeds on the sites a user goes to frequently and work that into the UI somehow. When you open Chrome and see thumbnails of your favorite sites, each thumbnail might have a button saying, "Recent updates...." And there's one simple feature that people would easily figure out and would actually use. When you're on a site that has an RSS feed, there could be a little pop-over button in a corner (like the button added by Feedly's Firefox plugin) that you can click to see a list of recent updates to a site. It's a simple feature, some people would figure it out for themselves, and anyone could grasp how it worked after seeing it used once or twice. It would put pressure on websites to provide good RSS feeds, because they would know many users were checking them. Here's a tip: put the words "Recent updates" on the button. tl;dr Don't say RSS, don't use a symbol, don't say "subscribe" or "subscription," just use the word "updates" and say what you mean.

danenania 16y ago
Good ideas. Even though the article severely exaggerates, I agree that the browser is the ideal integration point for rss from a ux point of view, but the implementation needs to be totally reimagined for it to appeal to a mass audience.