#rss

I've been looking for good resources to introduce people to #RSS and this looks like a great one by @interconnected.org!

Speaking of #RSS, I love this piece by @anildash.com.

I've always wondered if one of the biggest differences in adoption between podcasts and text-based RSS feeds is that "podcast" has a catchy ring to it, and "really simple sindication" does not. Neither does "RDF site summary". It makes me further wonder if @textcasting.org (by @scripting.com) is more important as (re-)branding for text-based RSS feeds than it is as an actual new standard.

I noticed my following feed was broken earlier this week. It turns out it's been broken since the updated site went live at the beginning of the year. Whoops! 😅

The issue was with my static site generator and how it was parsing OPML data files. With that fixed I can now drop a lightly modified OPML file (with paywalled #RSS feeds removed) into a data folder and get an auto-generated following page. 🤌🏽

This whole idea was inspired by this @anildash.com blog post that I think about way too often.

Originally posted on @sheesh.blog.

Long time listener, first time caller

I can't remember the last time I read a book from front to back¹, but I am a voracious reader. The thing is, I prefer to read "the internet" instead of books.

At some point early on in my internet journey I discovered #RSS and I immediately fell in love². My RSS feed became like my own personal newspaper, where I was the curator. I could add and remove columnists blog feeds as my interest graph would change over time. I was one of the many³ who decried the death of Google Reader. RSS lives on, but it's not as ubiquitious as it once was.

For some years my feed shifted from RSS to social media — almost exclusively Twitter, and mostly via Twitter Lists — but a few trends in recent years have brought me back to RSS:

1. RSS services are great again⁴.
2. RSS apps are making a comeback!
3. "Doomscrolling" became a thing™️, prompting a renewed need to curate my feed.

With my newfound replacement for Google Reader's service (Feedbin.com), and my favorite old RSS reader app making a glorious (and open source!!) comeback, I decided to start the curation process from scratch. I created folders for "News", "People", "Portland" (my local happenings), "Products", "Startups", and "Tech".

And then I started subscribing. And I discovered that the very first feeds I added were the very same feeds I've been reading all along. A combination of overlapping interest graphs (I'm assuming) and writing styles have kept me reading certain blogs for over a decade now. These are the bloggers who's writing has both intimidated me – because I hold them in high esteem – and inspired me to start this blog.

I have feared that if I ever started a blog I would appear as a copy cat, a cheap imitation of these now-veterans who probably started like I am starting right now. But I decided that instead of shying away from writing, I should lean into it. Give credit where credit is due. Start my blog, in my own voice (however heavily "inspired by" it may be), and acknowledge those who went before me.

Starting a blog is easy. Buy a domain ✅ write an /about page ✅ write a "hello, world" ✅ smash the publish button. 💥 But for me, I could not have started this blog without acknowledging who this blog was inspired by.

✌️