Why I Still Use RSS | atthislink

Am I on the IndieWeb Yet? | Miriam Eric Suzanne

Miriam has a wishlist for scaling up the indie web approach:

What I would like to see is a tool that helps bring the entire system together in one place. Somewhere that non-technical people can:

• build their own site, with support for feeds/mentions
• see what feeds are available on other sites, and subscribe to them
• easily respond to other sites, and see the resulting threads

(Oh, and by linking to this post, this should show up as a bookmark—I’m also testing Miriam’s webmention setup.)

Increasing the surface area of blogging

RSS is kind of an invisible technology. People call RSS dead because you can’t see it. There’s no feed, no login, no analytics. RSS feels subsurface.

But I believe we’re living in a golden age of RSS. Blogging is booming. My feed reader has 280 feeds in it.

RSS - Chris Coyier

How is all this social? It’s just slow social. If you want to respond to me, publish something linking to what I said. If I want to respond to you, I publish something linking to what you wrote. Old school. Good school. It’s high-effort, but I think the required effort is a positive thing for a social network. Forces you to think more.

gilest.org: What using RSS feeds feels like

• You’re the curator
• You decide what’s interesting
• You have more control over what you read and how
• It’s a fast and efficient way of reading a lot of web
• It’s just better than the endless scroll of a social media feed

Spot on!

To me, using RSS feeds to keep track of stuff I’m interested in is a good use of my time. It doesn’t feel like a burden, it doesn’t feel like I’m being tracked or spied on, and it doesn’t feel like I’m just another number in the ads game.

To me, it feels good. It’s a way of reading the web that better respects my time, is more likely to appeal to my interests, and isn’t trying to constantly sell me things.

That’s what using RSS feeds feels like.

About Feeds | Getting Started guide to web feeds/RSS

Matt made this website to explain RSS to people who are as-ye unfamilar with it.