5 ms·

I love to see this. The death of blogs and RSS is highly exaggerated. The idea that Google "killed" blogs by killing Google Reader is a meme that is more destru

by kepano 4y ago

I love to see this. The death of blogs and RSS is highly exaggerated. The idea that Google "killed" blogs by killing Google Reader is a meme that is more destructive than Google's act in itself. There are countless healthy and active blogs that you can read via RSS. There are great RSS reader apps. For us technically-minded folks we need to keep being proactive about helping people read the web via RSS, improving discovery, and continually making RSS a first-class option on sites we build.

onetrickwolf 4y ago
I think people seem them as dead because a small percentage of internet users engage with them, but people forget that billions more people have access to the internet now. Even though it's a smaller percentage, the actual number of users has still gone up generally in my experience.
wpietri 4y ago
It sure didn't help, but I agree that Google Reader's death didn't kill blogs themselves; the decline has been pretty steady (Reader was killed in 2013): https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=rss,blog https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=r... I also agree that RSS is still worth it. I am a happy subscriber to Newsblur: https://newsblur.com/ https://newsblur.com/ Indeed, the mess that is Twitter is giving me hope that we'll see a comeback of people self-hosting their content.
marban 4y ago
https://biztoc.com https://biztoc.com for instance.
moffkalast 4y ago
- Kye 4y ago
  The troubling assumption here is that every site has or depends on ads and cares about rankings. >> "Why would anyone implement it?" Because your assumption is wrong.
- executesorder66 4y ago
  They wouldn't, but who cares about them? RSS is for people who blog to share their interests freely, and to help their readers get the content more easily.
- manicennui 4y ago
  Not everyone is trying to monetize everything.
  - nibbleshifter 4y ago
    Absolute heresy to say that on here lol.
    - account42 4y ago
      Actually not really. Depends on the post of course, but for a VC ad channel, HN has plenty of users that are very much not aligned with that mindset and more let's say idealistic comments will regularly get upvoted here.
- rambambram 4y ago
  I would say that providing a first paragraph of text by RSS feed might actually attract more users/readers to a site to read the full article (paid or not). Wasn't it Basecamp/37Signals who said to emulate drugs dealers and give the first try away for free? ;)
  - nibbleshifter 4y ago
    I've never met a single drug dealer who actually gave any drugs away for free.
    - riffraff 4y ago
      I recall as a kid teachers giving us these lectures about not accepting drug-containing removable tattoos from strangers. I wonder where this meme came from.
      - account42 4y ago
        Drug education has always been all kinds of divorced from reality. But once you step away from literal drugs then the concept of a freebie to hook you is not at all uncommon.
- rchaud 4y ago
  Why did people create podcasts for free and distribute them via RSS? Because there once was a time when advances in computing had use cases that weren't driven entirely by commercial interests.
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    If only we still lived in that reality.
    - account42 4y ago
      You can always choose to. Not everyone will join you of course and you might be discouraged because of that but there are plenty of us putting websites and content online without commercial interests.
    - nine_k 4y ago
      We still do! But the percentage of such publishers is smaller than back then, maybe against the desires if would-be publishers. Do you think it was easy to offer paid online content and get paid in 1998?
- janalsncm 4y ago
  On my blog I get about 800 hits per month. It’s not enough to generate meaningful revenue with ads. So my blog is more about branding and SEO for my name, and slapping an ad or even a donate button feels cheap to me. If I had 10x the visitors I might see things differently but I think a lot of small blogs are in my boat.
- susam 4y ago
  I have been maintaining a personal website since 2001 and the core interest of my website is to share things I find interesting. RSS does not go against that. On the other hand, RSS makes it easy for subscribers to find out when I have shared something new.
- lgas 4y ago
  Different people have different goals.
stanislavb 4y ago
A shameless plug - I've built (recently) a simple yet powerful blog reader that could satisfy the needs of most people https://lenns.io https://lenns.io. Why - it solves three primary issues with "traditional" readers: 1) You can follow websites (based on blog-post titles) when there isn't a proper RSS feed. 2) You have control on how many results per feed to have listed (e.g. not having your whole feed overloaded with the posts of one source) 3) You can assign priorities to Sources and categories so that you have control what's on top of your feed. ... if someone here bothers to give it a try, I'd be happy to receive any feedback. p.s. there's a full OPML import/export support.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  > As most blogs and websites don't export the full content of their posts, that leads to a mixed reading experience. Quite often, you click the title of a post within a conventional reader only to see that there's nothing there apart from another link to the original post. It’s the opposite for me. Almost every blog exports the full text. It used to be the other way, but that was in the GReader times. > The feed reader for people that want to be in control I find that a questionable headline with no self-hosting option. And it misses screenshots, I never sign up blind for anything.
- leokennis 4y ago
  This sounds interesting to me. Not because RSS is broken, I hardly ever encounter a site without a feed. But the "only one best article per site per day" sounds very smart. However...do I get this by e-mail? In an app? Web interface? Maybe you could add some screenshots to your page :-)

by kepano 4y ago

onetrickwolf 4y ago

I think people seem them as dead because a small percentage of internet users engage with them, but people forget that billions more people have access to the internet now. Even though it's a smaller percentage, the actual number of users has still gone up generally in my experience.

wpietri 4y ago

It sure didn't help, but I agree that Google Reader's death didn't kill blogs themselves; the decline has been pretty steady (Reader was killed in 2013): https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=rss,blog https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=r... I also agree that RSS is still worth it. I am a happy subscriber to Newsblur: https://newsblur.com/ https://newsblur.com/ Indeed, the mess that is Twitter is giving me hope that we'll see a comeback of people self-hosting their content.

marban 4y ago

https://biztoc.com https://biztoc.com for instance.

moffkalast 4y ago

Kye 4y ago
The troubling assumption here is that every site has or depends on ads and cares about rankings. >> "Why would anyone implement it?" Because your assumption is wrong.
executesorder66 4y ago
They wouldn't, but who cares about them? RSS is for people who blog to share their interests freely, and to help their readers get the content more easily.
manicennui 4y ago
Not everyone is trying to monetize everything.
- nibbleshifter 4y ago
  Absolute heresy to say that on here lol.
  - account42 4y ago
    Actually not really. Depends on the post of course, but for a VC ad channel, HN has plenty of users that are very much not aligned with that mindset and more let's say idealistic comments will regularly get upvoted here.
rambambram 4y ago
I would say that providing a first paragraph of text by RSS feed might actually attract more users/readers to a site to read the full article (paid or not). Wasn't it Basecamp/37Signals who said to emulate drugs dealers and give the first try away for free? ;)
- nibbleshifter 4y ago
  I've never met a single drug dealer who actually gave any drugs away for free.
  - riffraff 4y ago
    I recall as a kid teachers giving us these lectures about not accepting drug-containing removable tattoos from strangers. I wonder where this meme came from.
    - account42 4y ago
      Drug education has always been all kinds of divorced from reality. But once you step away from literal drugs then the concept of a freebie to hook you is not at all uncommon.
rchaud 4y ago
Why did people create podcasts for free and distribute them via RSS? Because there once was a time when advances in computing had use cases that weren't driven entirely by commercial interests.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  If only we still lived in that reality.
  - account42 4y ago
    You can always choose to. Not everyone will join you of course and you might be discouraged because of that but there are plenty of us putting websites and content online without commercial interests.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    We still do! But the percentage of such publishers is smaller than back then, maybe against the desires if would-be publishers. Do you think it was easy to offer paid online content and get paid in 1998?
janalsncm 4y ago
On my blog I get about 800 hits per month. It’s not enough to generate meaningful revenue with ads. So my blog is more about branding and SEO for my name, and slapping an ad or even a donate button feels cheap to me. If I had 10x the visitors I might see things differently but I think a lot of small blogs are in my boat.
susam 4y ago
I have been maintaining a personal website since 2001 and the core interest of my website is to share things I find interesting. RSS does not go against that. On the other hand, RSS makes it easy for subscribers to find out when I have shared something new.
lgas 4y ago
Different people have different goals.

stanislavb 4y ago

A shameless plug - I've built (recently) a simple yet powerful blog reader that could satisfy the needs of most people https://lenns.io https://lenns.io. Why - it solves three primary issues with "traditional" readers: 1) You can follow websites (based on blog-post titles) when there isn't a proper RSS feed. 2) You have control on how many results per feed to have listed (e.g. not having your whole feed overloaded with the posts of one source) 3) You can assign priorities to Sources and categories so that you have control what's on top of your feed. ... if someone here bothers to give it a try, I'd be happy to receive any feedback. p.s. there's a full OPML import/export support.

Semaphor 4y ago
> As most blogs and websites don't export the full content of their posts, that leads to a mixed reading experience. Quite often, you click the title of a post within a conventional reader only to see that there's nothing there apart from another link to the original post. It’s the opposite for me. Almost every blog exports the full text. It used to be the other way, but that was in the GReader times. > The feed reader for people that want to be in control I find that a questionable headline with no self-hosting option. And it misses screenshots, I never sign up blind for anything.
leokennis 4y ago
This sounds interesting to me. Not because RSS is broken, I hardly ever encounter a site without a feed. But the "only one best article per site per day" sounds very smart. However...do I get this by e-mail? In an app? Web interface? Maybe you could add some screenshots to your page :-)