7 ms·

I believe the internet has gone full-circle - from curated lists and RSS feeds, to automated ranking, and now going back. Almost all top-tier professionals I m

I believe the internet has gone full-circle - from curated lists and RSS feeds, to automated ranking, and now going back. Almost all top-tier professionals I meet prefer very niche data-sources they trust (mostly individuals and personal blogs - not even organizations), occasionally augmenting them with automated crawls. There is a lot of space for hybrid approaches and we are going to see a new generation of browsers and search engines. I don't think Google can stop that.

jsemrau 3y ago
the pendulum of choice
RexM 3y ago
I want an easy way to find these quality sources.
- arromatic 3y ago
  Same , wish there was a directory of rss . In past it was googles task to provide quality sources when searching and google excelled at this but somehow google is failing at this now.
  - hkt 3y ago
    I'm pretty sure every site on this directory has RSS: http://ooh.directory/ http://ooh.directory/ Not the complete answer, but a part of it.
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    Seems like this would be a good feature for Kagi search if it isn't there already?
  - lonk11 3y ago
    Just a directory of feeds could be of limited use. You don't know the signal-to-noise ratio of each feed for you. You subscribe to tens or hundreds of feeds and, boom, you have another problem - how do you prioritize which feed to read . With https://linklonk.com https://linklonk.com I'm trying to solve both problems: discovering feeds to follow and prioritizing content from all feeds. You start with content you liked - submit links you liked and you will get connected to all feeds that included this link. For example, there are a bunch of feeds that included this link https://simonwillison.net/2024/Feb/21/gemini-pro-video/ https://simonwillison.net/2024/Feb/21/gemini-pro-video/ Those are: - https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/ https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/ - the original blog - https://kagi.com/api/v1/smallweb/feed/ https://kagi.com/api/v1/smallweb/feed/ - a feed of "small web" links, I didn't know it existed, but one of the users must have submitted this feed. - https://hnrss.org/newest?points=1000&count=100 https://hnrss.org/newest?points=1000&count=100 - HN links that got more than 1000 points - https://lobste.rs/rss https://lobste.rs/rss - submissions to Lobste.rs - https://lobste.rs/t/ai.rss https://lobste.rs/t/ai.rss - submissions to Lobste.rs with "ai" tag. The point is, if you upvote this link on LinkLonk (https://linklonk.com/item/481037215144673280 https://linklonk.com/item/481037215144673280), you automatically get subscribed to all of these feeds. This is a way to discover new feeds through content you liked. Now, being connected to hundreds or thousands of feeds might seem crazy. But we have a solution to that which also relies on what content you "liked". LinkLonk knows how often you liked content from each feed you are connected to (which is essentially the signal-to-noise ratio). So it ranks new content based on that. If you like 50% of posts from https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/ https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/ then new posts from Simon Willison will be shown above other links from, say, https://lobste.rs/rss https://lobste.rs/rss. The more you like - the better the ranking of fresh content becomes. In this world you don't have to actively manage which feeds you are subscribed to or not. You only rate content.
  - jseliger 3y ago
    There are people like me, who write blogs that routinely include links posts. Subscribe to those blogs, check out the stories that interest you, and subscribe to those sites in turn. I have a couple hundred sites in NetNewsWire.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  There's no "easy way to find quality sources", that's mutually exclusive nowadays. Whatever is mainstream and easy to find gets automatically gamed through SEO junk, advertising, astroturfing, and becomes poor quality again in no time. Like how much do you trust CNET and Linus Tech Tips? The best quality sources are always involving thorough human vetting of trusted and impartial people on platforms which have higher bar to entry and require some friction to find, aka word of mouth. Which is why curated and moderated user platforms like HN, some sub-Reddit, blogs, mailing lists, community forums, are so important and also why Google search is just so useless nowadays for finding anything other than model number datasheets and product online shopping.
  - tbatchelli 3y ago
    > There's no "easy way to find quality sources", that's mutually exclusive nowadays. Whatever is mainstream and easy to find gets automatically gamed through SEO junk, advertising and astroturfing, and becomes poor quality again in no time. So true, a what unsolvable problem. SEO in particular, and greed in general, kills the ability of knowledge networks to organically grow, at least past the niche state. Putting time in building your own network of trusted sources pays off handsomely. But it takes time.
- bsdice 3y ago
  There is no easy way, because you have to be able to identify the greats of a field to find relentless quality. You have to become a nerd of greatness, armed with an RSS reader. Example: You can probably tell what Jeff Beck, Stefan Hauk, Jacob Deraps have in common. Sreten of M539 Restaurations? Marco Reps or Shariar of The Signal Path? Igor Bogdanov. Chips and Cheese. The Orbital Mechanics Podcast. The War Zone. Some post once a year or even less.
- EvanAnderson 3y ago
  Back in '05 when I started self-hosting tt-rss I thought it'd be cool to add some "social" features to it. Specifically, I'd like to see new feed suggestions from people for whom I have followed feeds in-common. My idea was dismissed by the tt-rss author (and at the time and I still had aspirations to submit patches). I gave up on submitting patches, forked the code for my personal use, and never got around to the "social" idea. I don't know if mainstream feed readers still do OPML[0] exports or not. I'd enjoy seeing OPML files from people whose blogs I read. Actually, I'd like it if people on HN published OPML files. Maybe I should. Hmmm... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPML
  - stareatgoats 3y ago
    > I don't know if mainstream feed readers still do OPML[0] exports or not Most of the feed readers (at least the open source ones) I have seen lately have offered OPML exports.
- t-3 3y ago
  One of the many things I love about seamonkey is that it has built-in RSS support and will pop up an icon at the end of the URL bar when an RSS feed is defined on a site. Combined with the built in RSS/Email/NNTP reader, it makes it very convenient to find feeds just by clicking links on sites like this one.
TheCowboy 3y ago
I'd love for RSS to make a comeback but one problem is a lot of niche data sources can be on platforms that don't provide a public feed, so you have the inclination of companies to put up walls in an attempt to capture user attention as a counter force.
- crtasm 3y ago
  Plus we used to be able to use tools that scraped and turned sites into feeds, but now most of the sites I'd like to do that on are "protected" by javascript challenges etc. I will visit your site more if you let me get updates in my preferred fashion!
hot_gril 3y ago
I tried making an app where you repost interesting news onto your own sorta-RSS feed, which your followers could then re-repost and so on. No global "trending" or visible follower counts, just peers, imo the exact right about of social networking. But nobody used it.
- NetOpWibby 3y ago
  Try it again
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    Oh I will at some point. It's been 4 times already.
- from-nibly 3y ago
  Sounds like distributed tumblr. I think the world needs that really bad right now. Tumblr is going to fail soon it's totally zombified as far as the software goes. But this is basically how Tumblr operates except it's centralized.
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    Erm, it's not distributed though, but it could be. I've been told about Tumblr before, but it has popularity contests (trending topics, high-profile accounts), which I intentionally avoided because it changes the whole thing. You follow your IRL friends and that's it.
    - noirbot 3y ago
      That seems like it presumes that your IRL friends have good taste/similar interests though. The reason people follow big accounts is because the big accounts often have some specific niche of thing they post in that's curated in a way that resonates with people. Most of my IRL friends maybe only share 1-2 major interests with me. My friend who may repost interesting board game news would also share things about kayaking or crypto investing that I don't care about. If my IRL friends run into something they think I'd be interested in, they'll just send it to me directly. What's the value in getting the combined firehose of all their reading?
asciimov 3y ago
> I believe the internet has gone full-circle… One of the most annoying things about the internet is avoiding the great enshittification cycle. I want things to be popular enough that there is traction but not popular enough that the Ad people are salivating to squeeze another dollar out of it.
AJ007 3y ago
I think you are right. My usage of RSS was nearly non-existent for many years. Now it is daily. I was shocked to find even local news sites publishing full articles in their RSS feed. Most sites still have feeds. There is now infinite content available in traditional commercial feeds. You just have to accept it is non-chronological, non-subscribed noise pollution: Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, etc. That suddenly makes RSS extraordinarily attractive -- perhaps even more so than it was 15 years ago.
- dugite-code 3y ago
  Youtube still has RSS feeds thankfully, although they did kill the subscription OPML export

jsemrau 3y ago

the pendulum of choice

RexM 3y ago

I want an easy way to find these quality sources.

arromatic 3y ago
Same , wish there was a directory of rss . In past it was googles task to provide quality sources when searching and google excelled at this but somehow google is failing at this now.
- hkt 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure every site on this directory has RSS: http://ooh.directory/ http://ooh.directory/ Not the complete answer, but a part of it.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  Seems like this would be a good feature for Kagi search if it isn't there already?
- lonk11 3y ago
  Just a directory of feeds could be of limited use. You don't know the signal-to-noise ratio of each feed for you. You subscribe to tens or hundreds of feeds and, boom, you have another problem - how do you prioritize which feed to read . With https://linklonk.com https://linklonk.com I'm trying to solve both problems: discovering feeds to follow and prioritizing content from all feeds. You start with content you liked - submit links you liked and you will get connected to all feeds that included this link. For example, there are a bunch of feeds that included this link https://simonwillison.net/2024/Feb/21/gemini-pro-video/ https://simonwillison.net/2024/Feb/21/gemini-pro-video/ Those are: - https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/ https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/ - the original blog - https://kagi.com/api/v1/smallweb/feed/ https://kagi.com/api/v1/smallweb/feed/ - a feed of "small web" links, I didn't know it existed, but one of the users must have submitted this feed. - https://hnrss.org/newest?points=1000&count=100 https://hnrss.org/newest?points=1000&count=100 - HN links that got more than 1000 points - https://lobste.rs/rss https://lobste.rs/rss - submissions to Lobste.rs - https://lobste.rs/t/ai.rss https://lobste.rs/t/ai.rss - submissions to Lobste.rs with "ai" tag. The point is, if you upvote this link on LinkLonk (https://linklonk.com/item/481037215144673280 https://linklonk.com/item/481037215144673280), you automatically get subscribed to all of these feeds. This is a way to discover new feeds through content you liked. Now, being connected to hundreds or thousands of feeds might seem crazy. But we have a solution to that which also relies on what content you "liked". LinkLonk knows how often you liked content from each feed you are connected to (which is essentially the signal-to-noise ratio). So it ranks new content based on that. If you like 50% of posts from https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/ https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/ then new posts from Simon Willison will be shown above other links from, say, https://lobste.rs/rss https://lobste.rs/rss. The more you like - the better the ranking of fresh content becomes. In this world you don't have to actively manage which feeds you are subscribed to or not. You only rate content.
- jseliger 3y ago
  There are people like me, who write blogs that routinely include links posts. Subscribe to those blogs, check out the stories that interest you, and subscribe to those sites in turn. I have a couple hundred sites in NetNewsWire.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
There's no "easy way to find quality sources", that's mutually exclusive nowadays. Whatever is mainstream and easy to find gets automatically gamed through SEO junk, advertising, astroturfing, and becomes poor quality again in no time. Like how much do you trust CNET and Linus Tech Tips? The best quality sources are always involving thorough human vetting of trusted and impartial people on platforms which have higher bar to entry and require some friction to find, aka word of mouth. Which is why curated and moderated user platforms like HN, some sub-Reddit, blogs, mailing lists, community forums, are so important and also why Google search is just so useless nowadays for finding anything other than model number datasheets and product online shopping.
- tbatchelli 3y ago
  > There's no "easy way to find quality sources", that's mutually exclusive nowadays. Whatever is mainstream and easy to find gets automatically gamed through SEO junk, advertising and astroturfing, and becomes poor quality again in no time. So true, a what unsolvable problem. SEO in particular, and greed in general, kills the ability of knowledge networks to organically grow, at least past the niche state. Putting time in building your own network of trusted sources pays off handsomely. But it takes time.
bsdice 3y ago
There is no easy way, because you have to be able to identify the greats of a field to find relentless quality. You have to become a nerd of greatness, armed with an RSS reader. Example: You can probably tell what Jeff Beck, Stefan Hauk, Jacob Deraps have in common. Sreten of M539 Restaurations? Marco Reps or Shariar of The Signal Path? Igor Bogdanov. Chips and Cheese. The Orbital Mechanics Podcast. The War Zone. Some post once a year or even less.
EvanAnderson 3y ago
Back in '05 when I started self-hosting tt-rss I thought it'd be cool to add some "social" features to it. Specifically, I'd like to see new feed suggestions from people for whom I have followed feeds in-common. My idea was dismissed by the tt-rss author (and at the time and I still had aspirations to submit patches). I gave up on submitting patches, forked the code for my personal use, and never got around to the "social" idea. I don't know if mainstream feed readers still do OPML[0] exports or not. I'd enjoy seeing OPML files from people whose blogs I read. Actually, I'd like it if people on HN published OPML files. Maybe I should. Hmmm... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPML
- stareatgoats 3y ago
  > I don't know if mainstream feed readers still do OPML[0] exports or not Most of the feed readers (at least the open source ones) I have seen lately have offered OPML exports.
t-3 3y ago
One of the many things I love about seamonkey is that it has built-in RSS support and will pop up an icon at the end of the URL bar when an RSS feed is defined on a site. Combined with the built in RSS/Email/NNTP reader, it makes it very convenient to find feeds just by clicking links on sites like this one.

TheCowboy 3y ago

I'd love for RSS to make a comeback but one problem is a lot of niche data sources can be on platforms that don't provide a public feed, so you have the inclination of companies to put up walls in an attempt to capture user attention as a counter force.

crtasm 3y ago
Plus we used to be able to use tools that scraped and turned sites into feeds, but now most of the sites I'd like to do that on are "protected" by javascript challenges etc. I will visit your site more if you let me get updates in my preferred fashion!

hot_gril 3y ago

I tried making an app where you repost interesting news onto your own sorta-RSS feed, which your followers could then re-repost and so on. No global "trending" or visible follower counts, just peers, imo the exact right about of social networking. But nobody used it.

NetOpWibby 3y ago
Try it again
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- hot_gril 3y ago
  Oh I will at some point. It's been 4 times already.
from-nibly 3y ago
Sounds like distributed tumblr. I think the world needs that really bad right now. Tumblr is going to fail soon it's totally zombified as far as the software goes. But this is basically how Tumblr operates except it's centralized.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  Erm, it's not distributed though, but it could be. I've been told about Tumblr before, but it has popularity contests (trending topics, high-profile accounts), which I intentionally avoided because it changes the whole thing. You follow your IRL friends and that's it.
  - noirbot 3y ago
    That seems like it presumes that your IRL friends have good taste/similar interests though. The reason people follow big accounts is because the big accounts often have some specific niche of thing they post in that's curated in a way that resonates with people. Most of my IRL friends maybe only share 1-2 major interests with me. My friend who may repost interesting board game news would also share things about kayaking or crypto investing that I don't care about. If my IRL friends run into something they think I'd be interested in, they'll just send it to me directly. What's the value in getting the combined firehose of all their reading?

asciimov 3y ago

> I believe the internet has gone full-circle… One of the most annoying things about the internet is avoiding the great enshittification cycle. I want things to be popular enough that there is traction but not popular enough that the Ad people are salivating to squeeze another dollar out of it.

AJ007 3y ago

I think you are right. My usage of RSS was nearly non-existent for many years. Now it is daily. I was shocked to find even local news sites publishing full articles in their RSS feed. Most sites still have feeds. There is now infinite content available in traditional commercial feeds. You just have to accept it is non-chronological, non-subscribed noise pollution: Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, etc. That suddenly makes RSS extraordinarily attractive -- perhaps even more so than it was 15 years ago.

dugite-code 3y ago
Youtube still has RSS feeds thankfully, although they did kill the subscription OPML export