MobileRead Forums - View Single Post

hacker · 03-13-2005, 01:55 AM

Before you jump on me, hear me out.. I'm actually soliciting some ideas and suggestions, and I have a real purpose behind this post, so I hope this thread gets nice and lengthy and opinionated. I want everyone to respond and contribute...

Feeds, blogs, syndication, rss, xml, rss, atom, opml... it goes by many different names, and there are about 13 different incompatible formats for all of them. They're all XML, so that makes it fairly easy to parse... almost.

I've personally run into dozens of feeds that are exported from very popular websites, that don't even validate as a proper feed. Techncially, as developers (or those who are parsing feed content with tools we write), we're supposed to reject the feed as invalid; the XML specification requires it, but the users don't care, they just want the content. Herein lies the complexity... and the paradox.

But what are feeds really useful for? You're only given a "teaser" in the feed, which, when clicked or followed, leads you to a full-page article with the full content from that article. Why would anyone want to use these "teasers" on a PDA? Without some serious clipping and transcoding of those full-size pages, you're wasting a ton of space on your PDA just to read news articles, if you follow more than just that top level.

For most websites, their feeds are simply used as "commercials" to help drive traffic to their site, and thus bring in some advertiser's revenue (banner ads), but why are they such a fad for mobile and PDA users? I haven't yet found a single useful feed that provides the followed content in a consistent mobile format (except ours, of course). They all just link to an overly-heavy, banner-ad-ridden, full-size webpage. These aren't fun to read on a PDA.

So here we go, an impromptu survey to solicit some discussion and opionions:

What do you use feeds for?

Are you reading them with a specialized reader?
A PDA or other mobile/handheld device?
A desktop browser?
Something else?

What is missing from your "feed" experience?

Better content?
More usable features?
Better integration with devices or browsers?
Something else?

How are you finding your favorite feeds?

Specialized feed-based search engine
Google? Yahoo? MSN?
Something else?

There are literally hundreds of tools out there to read, fetch, convert, integrate, migrate, and do all kinds of other things to feeds and other syndicated content... Lots of blogs and blog software can export directly to syndicated content (Drupal, Wordpress, Movable Type, and others, for example).

Thousands of people are using feeds and syndicated content.. but why?

03-13-2005, 01:55 AM	#1
hacker Technology Mercenary Posts: 617 Karma: 2561 Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: East Lyme, CT Device: Direct Neural Implant	Really now, what is the point of RSS? Before you jump on me, hear me out.. I'm actually soliciting some ideas and suggestions, and I have a real purpose behind this post, so I hope this thread gets nice and lengthy and opinionated. I want everyone to respond and contribute... Feeds, blogs, syndication, rss, xml, rss, atom, opml... it goes by many different names, and there are about 13 different incompatible formats for all of them. They're all XML, so that makes it fairly easy to parse... almost. I've personally run into dozens of feeds that are exported from very popular websites, that don't even validate as a proper feed. Techncially, as developers (or those who are parsing feed content with tools we write), we're supposed to reject the feed as invalid; the XML specification requires it, but the users don't care, they just want the content. Herein lies the complexity... and the paradox. But what are feeds really useful for? You're only given a "teaser" in the feed, which, when clicked or followed, leads you to a full-page article with the full content from that article. Why would anyone want to use these "teasers" on a PDA? Without some serious clipping and transcoding of those full-size pages, you're wasting a ton of space on your PDA just to read news articles, if you follow more than just that top level. For most websites, their feeds are simply used as "commercials" to help drive traffic to their site, and thus bring in some advertiser's revenue (banner ads), but why are they such a fad for mobile and PDA users? I haven't yet found a single useful feed that provides the followed content in a consistent mobile format (except ours, of course). They all just link to an overly-heavy, banner-ad-ridden, full-size webpage. These aren't fun to read on a PDA. So here we go, an impromptu survey to solicit some discussion and opionions: What do *you* use feeds for? Are you reading them with a specialized reader? A PDA or other mobile/handheld device? A desktop browser? Something else? What is *missing* from your "feed" experience? Better content? More usable features? Better integration with devices or browsers? Something else? How are you finding your favorite feeds? Specialized feed-based search engine Google? Yahoo? MSN? Something else? There are literally hundreds of tools out there to read, fetch, convert, integrate, migrate, and do all kinds of other things to feeds and other syndicated content... Lots of blogs and blog software can export directly to syndicated content (Drupal, Wordpress, Movable Type, and others, for example). Thousands of people are using feeds and syndicated content.. but why?