Scripting News - Latest Comments in RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

Tom — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:25:32 -0000

Couldn't agree more. It'll be interesting to see new formats of standardised information delivery emerge in the future to work alongside and possibly even enhance what we can already do with rss.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

orajean — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:15:37 -0000

Bravo, Mr. Winer!
We are a TRSS SaaS company and are taking RSS to the next level.

Our new shopping portal www.ShoppeSimple.net <http: www.shoppesimple.net=""> is launching in 33 days. ShoppeSimple is the first of its kind: a feed prospecting opportunity that enables consumers to pre-select themselves into offers from merchants they want to hear from and do business with. There are no implementation fees with our service, no IT involvement. We only get paid if we send new customers to our customers.

Kindly,
Ora DeMorrow
Business Development
RSSCheck / ShoppeSimple

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

merrymary2 — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:40:53 -0000

Amen, Mr. Winer!

Accuracy and investigation is still king. As Charlene Li said to Lee Odden way back n the day - as Groundswell was being released..
.Lee:If you could be a social technology, which would you be?

Charlene: RSS/XML. Nobody would know who I am or what my initials mean, but I make everything work together. I’d be the foundation of mashups, social applications, and widgets. Without me, the social Web would grind to a halt.

Thanks for your clarity in this discussion - people have the advantage of RSS at every turn as it is the blood vessels of the internet.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

daxl70 — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:05:08 -0000

I use google reader, you can set it to only show new items (the already read are taken out), and also you can make the subscription show old items first.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

StareClipsDOTcom — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:51:38 -0000

I agree, though I'm not sure exactly when your comparing Google Reader to what you'd prefer and when you are speaking in general. For instance, you stated:

"You have to go find the new stuff in Google Reader. I prefer a reader that finds the new stuff for me, and presents it in reverse chronologic order."

If you want news to come to you, just subscribe to the feed at Google News. Google Reader is an independent reading tool to read the things you want, not something to force news down your throat. Google News is a source to collect news and shove it down your throat. ;)

What confused me is you included the phrase "and presents it in reverse chronological order." When I read this, it sounded as though you were implying that Google Reader does not display things in reverse chronological order. It does. You can configure it to sort items in chronological order or reverse chronological order.

In my opinion (though it may not have been intended this way), RSS feed readers replace the idea of subscribing to posts via email. Before RSS, if I wanted to get regular updates from a particular source, I had to subscribe by giving out my email address. Eventually, when several places had my email address, I started getting spam. Spam was really hard to turn off and difficult to filter. Gmail has come a long way, but some still slip through the cracks. RSS saves the day.

I can subscribe to whatever feed I want... if one gets spammy, I just unsubscribe to it. With an RSS feed reader (such as Google Reader), I don't get spam that I didn't ask for. I don't have an "address" that people can pass around and bombard. Whatever I get will be through the syndication channels I specifically chose. This is why, in some cases, read/unread counts make sense. Maybe you want generalized news to read on any given day. I, on the other hand, want very specialized news. I can get my general news from places like Google News. However, if I don't want to visit Twitter and Facebook and fifteen different blogs which specialize in the kind of news I really want to hear about, I can just subscribe to each RSS feed and get it all in my RSS feed reader (in this case, Google Reader.) For these cases, I choose to read them in chronological order because I read every day. If a conversation takes place on Twitter or Facebook, I want to read it in the order it happened, not in reverse. If I only read news once a week, I would certainly sort it newest first, then would read backwards until I was bored of reading. Since I read every day, I read (or skim past) every post in chronological order until I have read everything, which makes read/unread status necessary.

If you don't like the read/unread concept, just ignore it. In Google Reader, you can hide the left nav panel and never have to worry about the unread counts. You can have it automatically start up in the items to read, and you can sort it by newest first. There's your "river of news" right there in Google Reader. Maybe I read your message wrong... maybe you weren't suggesting that Google Reader does not have these features.

By the way, it may be worth noting that I came across your post in Google Reader. Google has a special RSS feed called "cool"via Recommendations. It is a general list of general news deemed worthy of publications by the Google gods. The feed is here if you are interested:

http://www.google.com/reade...

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

William Mougayar — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:39:53 -0000

Dave, I can't add a cent to your points. Misinformed people are throwing the baby (RSS) with the bath water (Readers).
There is another misleading post pegging RSS as "old fashioned" that Mark Cuban is making while he's trumpeting PubHubSubbub..It must be rebutted as well- http://blogmaverick.com/200...
The last 3 days on this topic can be captured here: http://portal.eqentia.com/n... (via RSS semantic aggregation)
And the river of news on the future of news http://portal.eqentia.com/n... (an RSS-based app)

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

yigalc — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:14:12 -0000

The ability to concentrate all sources through RSS feeding into one place (In my case, Google Reader) up-lift my ability to learn and share knowledge, effectively. More than that, the fact that i can look for issues I am interested in, and get updates from all over the web (thorough integrate tools like BlogSearch, Twitter Search, BackType, etc - with Google Reader) is remarkable.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

ryantate — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:25:27 -0000

I have to agree with everyone saying Google Reader already does this. It does river really well, actually, and I'm a pretty hard core RSS user. "All Items" is basically the default view and it's a river. Click on any folder (where feeds are kept in reader) and you get a river view. To get a feed-by-feed view is actually the _harder_ thing to do -- you have to open the folders to see the individual feeds, and then click on one to see that feed.

It does depart from your philosophy in tracking "unread" items but it's very much a river.

That said, it has some major problems, foremost among them freshness of feeds and OPML (can't read live OPML, import dumps everything into one place, etc). And the interface could definitely use a major simplification (not to get at the River but w/r/t things like sharing/starring/favoriting, adding/removing feeds),

That said of course it's stilly to say RSS is dead or dying.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

patrickdarling — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:35:07 -0000

I have to agree that RSS is the way of choice for disseminating news content to both our traditional audiences as well as to audiences we never even knew we had. We've enjoyed major successes at our company using RSS as a tool in the PR toolbox for communicating our corporate messaging and overall story.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

Aron Atkins — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:09:56 -0000

Dave, It is possible to configure Google Reader in a "River of News" format.

1. Suppress the subscription management interface.
Settings->Preferences->Navigation pane display

2. Set the start page to the "all items" view.
Settings->Preferences->Start Page (choose "all items").

3. Set the sort order to "sort by oldest."
On the "all items" page, click the "View settings" button and choose "sort by oldest."

At this point, Google Reader shows a flat list of stories with a scroll bar on the right. This isn't quite the same as a single static HTML page because the top-level navigation controls are still there. This is a reasonable compromise, IMO.

There are binds to look at next/previous. The "j/k" bindings (mentioned above) work, but I remember "n/p" easier. You don't need to use the keybindings, but I like avoiding mousing where possible. You can also use paging controls or the scrollbar.

I really like the "star" feature so I can flag something for later re-reading. This is useful when I see something at work I want to read at home or vice versa. The "star" feature is portable bookmarking for feed entries.

I moved away from rawdog (a Python river-of-news HTML generator) to Google Reader and have been pretty happy.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

Rod — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:44:58 -0000

Hi Dave, I've been a Radio user since it was released and had been reading the web in Radio's river of news for a long time. I now use Google Reader and I'm confused as to what all the extra steps are. Once I set up Google Reader as the other commenters have described it is the same river of news view I had with Radio Userland. Maybe I'm forgetting something and need to load Radio again and see what I'm missing.

Is there any news on the possibility of an Intel build of Frontier? I've tried a few times to build it with Xcode but was never able to get it to build and run.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

yeasty123 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:31:17 -0000

You can scroll through it with the scroll bar/mouse wheel/down arrow and it will mark the articles read as you go past them -- the 'j' thing is just the way I do it so I don't have to take my fingers off the keyboard.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

Jim Edlin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:00:43 -0000

Re. point #2 - I guess there are other ways to use Google Reader, but the way I have always used it (showing new items from all items, sort by newest first) does in fact provide a reverse chronological order "river of news" as I understand that term. I've always strongly preferred this model myself, and settled on Google Reader after sampling other RSS reading tools *because* it provides this option. Not sure what you mean by "you have to find the new stuff" with Reader - I don't do anything but open it and read what looks interesting. (Oops - just saw Louis Gray and others already said pretty much the same and you already responded. Guess if this isn't the default setup it misses the mark by your standards. I set it up so long ago I didn't remember it wasn't the default.)

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

dave — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:40:16 -0000

Close but no cigar. A river of news is just a flat list of stories that you scroll through with the scroll bar. All the extra steps makes it *like* a river of news.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

yeasty123 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:28:58 -0000

I have used Google Reader as a river of news reader since it first came out. I just use the 'All Items' view with the view settings set to 'sort by newest'. Then I use 'j' to go forward item by item and 'k' if I want to go back up to something. It puts all of my feeds on a single page sorted by time with the newest items at the top.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

lPub — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:25:38 -0000

Hmmmm. Can't tell if this is some sort of ironic intentional bug or not. But NetNewsWire is not grabbing this article off of the feed... As if to say, this is what happens when RSS breaks down...

I went and read the Diaz article. All I have to add to your incisive response is from google definitions http://bit.ly/ImvSD --

Definitions of dilettante on the Web:
1. dabbler: an amateur who engages in an activity without serious intentions and who pretends to have knowledge
2. showing frivolous or superficial interest; amateurish; "his dilettantish efforts at painting"

Anyone who claims to be a tech writer, and writing a blog on zdnet suggests as much, ought to know the difference between RSS and google reader.
His description of navigating around yahoo and google news, while managing a large bookmark collection, makes me shudder and appreciate exactly why I use RSS. How is that easier and more cutting edge?

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

Louis Gray — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:07:31 -0000

Dave, you often talk about the importance of a River of News approach, and that this differs from Google Reader's offering. Specifically, you have said "I prefer a reader that finds the new stuff for me, and presents it in reverse chronologic order. This is known as a river of news reader." How much different is this from the "All items" view in Reader, which shows me the new stuff in reverse chronological order? There's no doubt their team has a huge respect for RSS and I bet they too would want to know how you believe they are not delivering what you need.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

Diego Sana — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:38:41 -0000

Agreed with everything :)

By the way, this post is not showing up in your rss feed. Just discovered it on Twitter :D

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

Joshua Hoover — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:13:50 -0000

Harrison, I set mine to sort by newest, show expanded, and start on showing all items. I also have it set to mark items as read when i scroll ("n") through them.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

Mason Lee — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:57:48 -0000

"Most are at odds with that with which they most constantly associate -- the account which governs the universe -- and what they meet with every day seems foreign to them." --Heraclitus (DK B72)

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

Abhishek — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:31:02 -0000

In my opinion RSS is the "Thread that weaves the web".
Rejecting RSS is like rejecting HTTP, as it has become such a backbone technology.

I agree, that most people don't like the application layer (GReader, Netvibes etc). There is lot of room for innovation there.
The critical innovation needed is to figure out how to filter through the data and deliver the right amount and relevant data to the user.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

Harrison Powers — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:19:45 -0000

Joshua, how does one set this preference in Google Reader? I see sort options for newest, oldest, and auto.

I feel as though the 'all items' page, sorted by newest works as a River of News. shortcut to refresh is r

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

Joshua Hoover — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:32:17 -0000

Dave, Well said. One small note on #2. Google Reader does allow you to have a river of news view. It's not the default but you can use it. River of news is my primary view in Google Reader. All the latest items (from all my feeds) show up first and I can scroll down to see the latest items. I don't think most people use Google Reader this way though.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

littlescottie — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:05:50 -0000

I don't know that a river of news setup is a fail, it just places greater responsibility on the person consuming the news. So many clients take that burden off of the user. But why? Too few people are selective enough. They amass too many friends, follow too many people and subscribe to too many feeds. It's overkill in the same way that cable news is overkill. So many items are characterized as news that fewer and fewer people even recognize what news is anymore. I once had a college course on rhetoric, politics and mass media. The professor asked the class what "news" means. Only one person in the class defined it as the plural of "new."

People show too much sensitivity and too little selectivity. Let's be a bit discriminative when it comes to the information we really care to know. That's what news is all about. Sure, you can browse through dozens of sites to find a few tidbits that appeal to you. Or you can know what appeals to you and where to get it, and subscribe to those feeds.

The river of news is a fail only to those who are all too willing to subscribe to superfluous sources. Besides, a good news source will point you to other outlets if they don't have the whole story.

Re: RSS is how the news flows (Scripting News)

mikepk — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:59:01 -0000

A river of news does not presuppose that everything *must* be in one river. In fact, what works best in my experience is a set of context and topic specific rivers. The best analogy is to the different sections of a newspaper: sports, science/tech, world news, politics, etc... Of course it doesn't always have to be topic specific either. I used to have one river that was just for people that I wanted to read everything they had to say. Keeping the sources for that river small, it's flow rate was diminished and I could read everything that went by.