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In addition, interoperability with the widest range of feed readers could be improved by implementing the following recommendations.

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheRssBlog

  1. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?><rss xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0">
  2.  <channel>
  3.    <title>The RSS Blog</title>
  4.    <link>https://rssweblog.com/</link>
  5.    <description>News and commentary from the RSS and OPML community.</description>
  6.    <dc:creator>rcade</dc:creator>
  7.    <language>en-us</language>
  8.    <docs>https://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification</docs>
  9.    <ttl>10</ttl>
  10.    <atom:link href="https://rssweblog.com/rss-feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/>
  11.    <atom:link href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com" rel="hub"/>
  12.    <copyright>Copyright 2005 Randy Charles Morin</copyright>
  13.    <itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit><itunes:image href="http://www.kbcafe.com/rss/logo.jpg"/><itunes:keywords>bad,podcast</itunes:keywords><itunes:summary>If I ever do a podcast, I guess this'll be the description.</itunes:summary><itunes:subtitle>If I ever do a podcast, I guess this'll be the description.</itunes:subtitle><itunes:category text="Technology"><itunes:category text="Podcasting"/></itunes:category><itunes:author>Randy Charles Morin</itunes:author><itunes:owner><itunes:email>randy@kbcafe.com</itunes:email><itunes:name>Randy Charles Morin</itunes:name></itunes:owner><item>
  14.      <title><![CDATA[Molly White: The Best Way Out of Today's Mess is RSS]]></title>
  15.      <link>https://rssweblog.com/news/155/molly-white-best-way-out-todays-mess-rss</link>
  16.      <description><![CDATA[<p>The ability of sites to be found on the web has become increasingly difficult with social media platforms penalizing posts that contain links, mountains of AI slop ranking above legitimate sites and Google showing users AI summaries that reword information instead of sending searchers to the originators.</p>
  17.  
  18. <p>The programmer and writer Molly White says there's a way to read the sites you care about without going through all these malicious middlemen: <a href="https://www.citationneeded.news/curate-with-rss/">Start using RSS</a>.</p>
  19.  
  20. <blockquote>
  21. <p>Many, if not most, websites publish an RSS feed. Whereas you can only follow a Twitter user on Twitter or a Substack writer in the Substack app, you can follow any website with an RSS feed in a feed reader. When you open it, all your reading is neatly waiting for you in one place, like a morning newspaper. And RSS is more of a one-way street from a privacy perspective, pushing writing out to you with less of your data flowing back to the publisher.</p>
  22.  
  23. <p>Fewer websites these days advertise their RSS feeds, and I've seen some people take this to mean they don’t support RSS anymore. They often still do -- you just need to use a feed reader to find the feed, rather than copying-and-pasting an RSS link from your browser. My feed reader has a handy browser extension that glows orange if it detects an RSS feed on the website you're visiting, and lets you quickly add it to your feed reader.</p>
  24.  
  25. <p>I will note that some tracking is still possible. For example, some platforms will replace links in newsletters with link forwarders that first track the click and then re-route you to the intended destination, and this is something that could feasibly expand to RSS. However, this is somewhat uncommon in my experience -- while you will see this kind of linking a lot in email newsletters sent from practically any platform (Substack, Beehiiv, Buttondown, and Ghost all offer the "feature", and it's often something a writer has to go out of their way to turn off), at least as of writing, these tracking links are typically not present in RSS feeds from those same platforms unless you are using email ingestion.</p>
  26.  
  27. <p>I've been heavily using RSS for over a decade, and it's a travesty more people aren't familiar with it. ...</p>
  28.  
  29. <p>RSS offers readers and writers a path away from unreliable, manipulative, and hostile platforms and intermediaries. In a media landscape dominated by algorithmic feeds that aim to manipulate and extract, sometimes the most radical thing you can do is choose to read what you want, when you want, without anyone watching over your shoulder.</p>
  30. </blockquote>
  31.  
  32. <p>White offers a tutorial for RSS beginners at the link. One of her best suggestions is to not worry too much about picking an RSS reader. You can easily switch from one to another by exporting your OPML subscription list.</p>]]></description>
  33.      <pubDate>Thu, 31 Jul 2025 20:34:33 -0400</pubDate>
  34.      
  35.      <comments>https://rssweblog.com/news/155/molly-white-best-way-out-todays-mess-rss#discuss</comments>
  36.      <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:rssweblog.com,2004:weblog.155</guid>
  37.      <category>RSS</category>
  38.      <category>RSS Readers</category>
  39.      <category>Molly White</category>
  40.    <dc:creator>randy@kbcafe.com (Randy Charles Morin)</dc:creator></item>
  41.    <item>
  42.      <title><![CDATA[Spanish Broadcaster Blocks Access to Podcasts in RSS Feeds]]></title>
  43.      <link>https://rssweblog.com/news/154/spanish-broadcaster-blocks-access-podcasts-rss-feeds</link>
  44.      <description><![CDATA[<figure class="text-center"><img src="https://rssweblog.com/media/antennapod-podcast-app-logo-android.svg" alt="The logo and name of the Android podcasting app AntennaPod. The logo is a blue circle with white radio waves emanating from the top of a white broadcasting antenna." class="img-fluid img-thumbnail" width="350" /></figure>
  45.  
  46. <p>The Spanish public broadcaster RTVE has begun blocking the podcast media files for its radio station RNE from being downloaded by some podcasting apps, reports James Cridland for <a href="https://podnews.net/article/rne-blocks-open-rss">Podnews</a>:</p>
  47.  
  48. <blockquote>
  49. <p>One such podcast app that RNE is blocking is <a href="https://antennapod.org/">AntennaPod</a>, a free podcast app on Android. It's one of the most popular apps on Android -- and in Spain, 78.8% of Spanish mobile phone users use Android mobile phones.</p>
  50.  
  51. <p>Users have discovered that RNE is <a href="https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/issues/7864#issuecomment-3028009473">specifically blocking AntennaPod</a>, based on the app’s user agent, which is correctly set for every download. It’s unclear why: The app contains no advertising, and is open-source. It's free to download, and acts in accordance with the unwritten contract between podcast publishers and apps. ...</p>
  52.  
  53. <p>RNE continues to publish open RSS feeds, so the broadcaster's shows appear in podcast apps -- but the audio isn't available. This means that RNE shows appear without any issue -- but don't play in some of them, causing audiences to think that the app, rather than the publisher, is at fault.</p>
  54. </blockquote>
  55.  
  56. <p>Blocking RSS feeds or their enclosures is antithetical to the spirit of the open web. Putting something in a public RSS feed says you want it to be downloaded by whatever software a listener chooses to use.</p>
  57.  
  58. <p>RTVE claims the move was justified because some apps are making money off their podcasts. A block based on user agents could be easily circumvented, since declaring one in an HTTP request is voluntary. AntennaPod users are being denied their listening choices because the app is conscientious enough to tell feed publishers its identity.</p>]]></description>
  59.      <pubDate>Thu, 24 Jul 2025 16:12:51 -0400</pubDate>
  60.      
  61.      <comments>https://rssweblog.com/news/154/spanish-broadcaster-blocks-access-podcasts-rss-feeds#discuss</comments>
  62.      <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:rssweblog.com,2004:weblog.154</guid>
  63.      <category>RSS</category>
  64.      <category>Podcasting</category>
  65.      <category>AntennaPod</category>
  66.    <dc:creator>randy@kbcafe.com (Randy Charles Morin)</dc:creator></item>
  67.    <item>
  68.      <title><![CDATA[Three RSS Readers This Blog is Currently Feeding]]></title>
  69.      <link>https://rssweblog.com/news/153/three-rss-readers-blog-currently-feeding</link>
  70.      <description><![CDATA[<figure class="text-center"><img src="https://rssweblog.com/media/netnewswire-logo-rss-reader.png" alt="Logo of the RSS reader software NetNewsWire. There's a satellite hovering over Earth in space with golden yellow solar panels, a silver dish and a silver body. Earth has blue water and lighter blue continents with a semitransparent black border around the globe." class="img-fluid img-thumbnail" width="165" /></figure>
  71.  
  72. <p>Because there's now an RSS feed for this weblog hosted locally at <a href="https://rssweblog.com/rss-feed">https://rssweblog.com/rss-feed</a>, the server logs reveal the RSS readers and other software that regularly check the feed for updates -- at least the ones that report themselves in the user agent of their HTTP requests. Here are some that have turned up in the first 10 days.</p>
  73.  
  74. <h3>RSS-to-Telegram Bot (RSStT)</h3>
  75.  
  76. <p><a href="https://github.com/Rongronggg9/RSS-to-Telegram-Bot">RSS-to-Telegram Bot</a>, also called RSStT, is an open source bot that forwards RSS and Atom feeds to Telegram users. I hadn't heard of it before but it looks robust and well-supported. The software is localized in several languages. Feed items can be sent as messages or articles on the instant messaging service, retaining rich text, images, audio and video. The import and export of OPML subscription lists is supported.</p>
  77.  
  78. <h3>FeedParser</h3>
  79.  
  80. <p><a href="https://feedparser.readthedocs.io/">FeedParser</a> is a Python library developed by Kurt McKee that has been in active development since 2002 and is in version 6.0.11. FeedParser supports all <a href="https://www.rssboard.org/rss-history">versions of RSS</a> from 0.9 to 2.0, Atom 0.3 and 1.0, CDF and RSS-RDF. Extensions including Dublin Core and iTunes are handled. FeedParser also offers advanced HTTP processing such as reading ETag and Last Modified headers, following redirects and reading feeds that require user credentials. In a sign of its longevity and popularity, it is included in several major Linux distributions.</p>
  81.  
  82. <h3>NetNewsWire</h3>
  83.  
  84. <p>No research was required for this one. <a href="https://netnewswire.com/">NetNewsWire</a>, a longtime favorite of this blog, is a free RSS and Atom reader for Mac, iPhone and iPad that first came out in 2002. It was created by Brent Simmons, a former member of the <a href="https://www.rssboard.org/">RSS Advisory Board</a>. NewsGator Technologies acquired it but Brent Simmons got it back in 2018 and released versions 5.0 and later under an open source license. I've been using the iOS version on my phone for years.</p>
  85. ]]></description>
  86.      <pubDate>Sat, 19 Jul 2025 13:39:55 -0400</pubDate>
  87.      
  88.      <comments>https://rssweblog.com/news/153/three-rss-readers-blog-currently-feeding#discuss</comments>
  89.      <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:rssweblog.com,2004:weblog.153</guid>
  90.      <category>RSS</category>
  91.      <category>RSS Readers</category>
  92.      <category>NetNewsWire</category>
  93.      <category>RSStT</category>
  94.      <category>FeedParser</category>
  95.      <category>Brent Simmons</category>
  96.    <dc:creator>randy@kbcafe.com (Randy Charles Morin)</dc:creator></item>
  97.    <item>
  98.      <title><![CDATA[How to Add RSS Autodiscovery Back to Google Chrome]]></title>
  99.      <link>https://rssweblog.com/news/152/add-rss-autodiscovery-back-google-chrome</link>
  100.      <description><![CDATA[<figure class="text-center"><a href="https://rssweblog.com/media/rss-autodiscovery-google-rss-subscription-extension.png"><img src="https://rssweblog.com/media/rss-autodiscovery-google-rss-subscription-extension.png" alt="Screenshot of the homepage of The RSS Blog with a red arrow added to point to the RSS icon in the Google Chrome extension toolbar. The icon is orange to indicate that the website has an RSS feed, which was indicated through RSS Autodiscovery. The page is the homepage of the site and contains the text The RSS Blog: News and commentary from the cross-platform RSS and OPML community." class="img-fluid img-thumbnail" width="600" /></a></figure>
  101.  
  102. <p>The major browsers used to indicate that a website had an RSS feed by displaying the orange RSS icon in the address bar at the far right of the bar. This no longer happens but an extension offered by Google's Ireland division adds it back to Chrome.</p>
  103.  
  104. <p>The <a href="https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/rss-subscription-extensio/nlbjncdgjeocebhnmkbbbdekmmmcbfjd?pli=1">RSS Subscription Extension</a> looks for a site's feeds using <a href="https://www.rssboard.org/rss-autodiscovery">RSS Autodiscovery</a>. A feed is identified using a <code>link</code> element in the page header.</p>
  105.  
  106. <p>After you install the extension, click the three-dot kebab menu in the browser's upper right corner, then choose Extensions > Manage Extensions. A page opens listing the extensions on your browser. Click the Details button for the RSS Subscription Extension and toggle the Pin to Toolbar setting.</p>
  107.  
  108. <p>The RSS Blog identifies its RSS feed with this HTML in the <code>head</code> section:</p>
  109.  
  110. <p><code>&lt;link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="The RSS Blog" href="https://rssweblog.com/rss-feed" /></code></p>
  111.  
  112. <p>If you have the RSS Subscription Extension with the Toolbar visible, the RSS icon in the toolbar changes from gray to orange when you're visiting this blog. When the icon is clicked a page opens displaying recent feed items with a Subscribe Now button and a drop-down containing five readers as choices along with Manage. The current selection of readers is Newsblur, My Yahoo, Feedly, Inoreader and The Old Reader.</p>
  113.  
  114. <p>A page can contain more than one <code>link</code> element when it has multiple feeds, such as the example of a website that has a feed for blog posts and another for comments. Clicking the orange RSS icon opens a drop-down menu of these feeds, which can be chosen to open the Subscribe Now page for that feed.</p>
  115.  
  116. <p>A lot of Chrome extensions are hard to trust because they come from a publisher you don't know or have a low download count. This one comes from Google and has been installed 400,000 times. The person we found about it from on Mastodon said they've been using it for four years.</p>]]></description>
  117.      <pubDate>Tue, 15 Jul 2025 16:33:32 -0400</pubDate>
  118.      
  119.      <comments>https://rssweblog.com/news/152/add-rss-autodiscovery-back-google-chrome#discuss</comments>
  120.      <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:rssweblog.com,2004:weblog.152</guid>
  121.      <category>RSS</category>
  122.      <category>RSS Autodiscovery</category>
  123.      <category>Google Chrome</category>
  124.    <dc:creator>randy@kbcafe.com (Randy Charles Morin)</dc:creator></item>
  125.    <item>
  126.      <title><![CDATA[FeedBurner Does Weird Things to Our RSS Feed]]></title>
  127.      <link>https://rssweblog.com/news/151/feedburner-does-weird-things-our-rss-feed</link>
  128.      <description><![CDATA[<figure class="text-center"><img src="https://rssweblog.com/media/feedburner-logo.png" alt="The logo of Google FeedBurner, which is an abstract orange and red flame sitting on a blue disc over the word FeedBurner. The logo has a registered trademark symbol and the word has a TM." class="img-fluid img-thumbnail" width="226" ></figure>
  129.  
  130. <p>The RSS Blog has used an RSS feed hosted on Google FeedBurner for many years, though recently we moved to a <a href="https://rssweblog.com/rss-feed">new feed</a> on this domain, giving us more control and a chance to retain subscribers when FeedBurner someday shuts down.</p>
  131.  
  132. <p>FeedBurner is putting things in the feed that aren't in the source feed we provide to the service, like these channel-level elements from the <code>itunes</code> namespace:</p>
  133.  
  134. <p><code>&lt;itunes:keywords>bad,podcast&lt;/itunes:keywords><br />
  135. &lt;itunes:summary>If I ever do a podcast, I guess this'll be the description.&lt;/itunes:summary><br />
  136. &lt;itunes:subtitle>If I ever do a podcast, I guess this'll be the description.&lt;/itunes:subtitle><br />
  137. &lt;itunes:category text="Technology"><br />
  138. &nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;itunes:category text="Podcasting"/><br />
  139. &lt;/itunes:category></code></p>
  140.  
  141. <p>It also adds <code>enclosure</code> elements to items that don't contain media enclosures -- along with more <code>itunes</code> elements. Unfortunately, the elements FeedBurner puts in cause the feed to fail validation in the <a href="https://www.rssboard.org/rss-validator/">RSS Validator</a>.</p>
  142.  
  143. <p>After some digging I found that this weirdness is happening because at some point the FeedBurner settings for the feed turned on SmartCast, an enhancement that enables feeds to support podcasts when an item in contains one. Here's some <a href="https://support.google.com/feedburner/answer/78990?hl=en">documentation</a> explaining the process:</p>
  144.  
  145. <blockquote>
  146. <p>When composing a new posting with your publishing tool, simply insert a link to your podcast content directly into the text. FeedBurner will take the first anchor (&lt;a>) tag that it finds in your posting content and convert the linked URL into an RSS 2.0 &lt;enclosure> element if FeedBurner detects the item is in a popular audio, video, or streaming media format. This conversion turns this feed item into content that current podcasting clients will download for use (see a list of clients at the bottom of this post).</p>
  147. </blockquote>
  148.  
  149. <p>This functionality was a boon for bloggers on platforms that didn't support podcasting yet.</p>
  150.  
  151. <p>Our RSS feed doesn't contain any podcasts. We can't turn off SmartCast without our old FeedBurner account, but this post should help some publishers whose feeds also have become haunted by phantom podcasting tags.</p>]]></description>
  152.      <pubDate>Sat, 12 Jul 2025 14:36:58 -0400</pubDate>
  153.      
  154.      <comments>https://rssweblog.com/news/151/feedburner-does-weird-things-our-rss-feed#discuss</comments>
  155.      <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:rssweblog.com,2004:weblog.151</guid>
  156.      <category>RSS</category>
  157.      <category>FeedBurner</category>
  158.      <category>RSS Feeds</category>
  159.      <category>SmartCast</category>
  160.    <dc:creator>randy@kbcafe.com (Randy Charles Morin)</dc:creator></item>
  161.    <item>
  162.      <title><![CDATA[Cartoonist Draws Conclusion: 'RSS is (Not) Dead']]></title>
  163.      <link>https://rssweblog.com/news/150/cartoonist-draws-conclusion-rss-not-dead</link>
  164.      <description><![CDATA[<p>The story of RSS has been told in fanzine form by cartoonist Audra McNamee and contributor Allia Service in <a href="https://audmcname.com/comics/rss-is-not-dead-yet/">RSS is (Not) Dead (Yet)</a>. The 12-page comic released in 2023 describes how the original RSS boom died 10 years earlier when Google Reader shut down, after which the rise of social media did further harm by pulling users into silos and rejecting the ethos of the open web.</p>
  165.  
  166. <figure class="text-center"><a href="https://audmcname.com/comics/rss-is-not-dead-yet/"><img src="https://rssweblog.com/media/rss-is-not-dead-yet-audra-mcnamee-allia-service-page-8.png" alt="Page 8 of RSS is (Not) Dead Yet, a fanzine by Audra McNamee and Allia Service. In panel one Ned says, 'So what happened after RSS died?' Panel two is titled Social Media and states 'Pros: Has faster updates than RSS. More user friendly. Social interaction (follow your friends). Algorithmically driven (find new cool stuff). Analytics for businesses. Easy to add ads for money. Cons: Social media is beholden to profits. Targeted ads/user tracking. Users and creators can be kicked off or censored arbitrarily. Ad money goes to platforms not creators. Algorithmically driven. Users have less control of what they see. Can be bought by Elon Musk whenever. In panel three Ned is carrying a wreath into a cemetery where there are tombstones for RSS, LiveJournal, MySpace, Napster, Vine, Google+ and Clubhouse. There's also a mausoleum for Blogs." class="img-fluid img-thumbnail" width="425" /></a></figure>
  167.  
  168. <p>McNamee and Service go on to tell how RSS has experienced another boom with the enormous popularity of podcasting. But they argue that it is again under threat from the same kind of corporate greed:</p>
  169.  
  170. <blockquote>
  171. <p>Podcast streamers are buying up podcast media companies and targeted advertising companies, and trying to monopolize distribution (e.g. get everyone to use their app.</p>
  172. </blockquote>
  173.  
  174. <p>I felt very seen by the part about infighting and "warring visions" within the RSS community. It hasn't always been easy to be a member of the <a href="https://www.rssboard.org/">RSS Advisory Board</a>, but there's some satisfaction in seeing how much RSS still matters today. McNamee and Service did a charming job of making that point.</p>]]></description>
  175.      <pubDate>Fri, 11 Jul 2025 14:12:21 -0400</pubDate>
  176.      
  177.      <comments>https://rssweblog.com/news/150/cartoonist-draws-conclusion-rss-not-dead#discuss</comments>
  178.      <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:rssweblog.com,2004:weblog.150</guid>
  179.      <category>RSS</category>
  180.      <category>Podcasting</category>
  181.      <category>RSS is Dead</category>
  182.      <category>Audra McNamee</category>
  183.      <category>Allia Service</category>
  184.    <dc:creator>randy@kbcafe.com (Randy Charles Morin)</dc:creator></item>
  185.    <item>
  186.      <title><![CDATA[Open RSS Scores Readers on Their Support for RSS]]></title>
  187.      <link>https://rssweblog.com/news/149/open-rss-scores-readers-their-support-rss</link>
  188.      <description><![CDATA[<p>The non-profit advocacy group Open RSS has an interesting <a href="https://openrss.org/apps">RSS scoreboard</a> that rates the RSS readers that request its feeds, indicating whether they meet the following criteria: open source, self-hostable, filtering, search, folders, import/export, full-text mode, mark read on scroll, sorting, custom rules, language translation and offline reading. The page also indicates whether they have browser extensions and what operating systems they're on.</p>
  189.  
  190. <figure class="text-center"><img src="https://rssweblog.com/media/open-rss-rss-reader-scoreboard.png" alt="Screen capture of the Open RSS page titled RSS Feed Apps, which contains a table rating RSS readers on the features they offer and their overall level of support for RSS feeds. The top portion of the list shown includes the readers Akregator, AntennaPod, BazQux, CapyReader, Combobox, CommaFeed, Easy RSS, Evolution RSS Reader Plugin, Feedbin, Feedbro, Feeder and FeedFlow. The criteria shown are Status, Platforms, Browser Extensions, Open Source, Self-Hostable and Filtering." class="img-fluid img-thumbnail" width="500" /></figure>
  191.  
  192. <p>This is too much information for a casual RSS user, but as an experienced consumer of feeds I appreciate being able to shop around for a new reader based on the features I care about. Open RSS has compiled a lot of information in one place. A reader I'm thinking about using, Miniflux, supports all but two features on the list!</p>
  193.  
  194. <p>Open RSS gives each reader an overall status score (hover over the icons in the row to see them):</p>
  195.  
  196. <p><ol>
  197.  <li>Green check mark: This app is likely compatible with RSS feeds</li>
  198.  <li>Yellow warning triangle: This app has unresolved issues that may cause RSS feeds not to so work well when used in the application</li>
  199.  <li>Red stop circle: This reader remains incompatible with RSS feeds due to the overwhelming amount of unresolved issues its owners refuse to resolve</li>
  200.  <li>Red stop circle: This reader is no longer maintained and is known to be incompatible with RSS feeds</li>
  201.  <li>Gray dot: The status of this application hasn't been determined yet</i>
  202. </ol></p>
  203.  
  204. <p>The popular RSS reader Inoreader scores particularly badly, as <a href="https://openrss.org/app/inoreader">detailed</a> on a page listing all of the problems. According to Open RSS, Inoreader uses multiple networks "to request feeds too frequently," does not identify itself, requests feeds from the wrong URLs and does not update feed requests.</p>]]></description>
  205.      <pubDate>Thu, 10 Jul 2025 11:15:28 -0400</pubDate>
  206.      
  207.      <comments>https://rssweblog.com/news/149/open-rss-scores-readers-their-support-rss#discuss</comments>
  208.      <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:rssweblog.com,2004:weblog.149</guid>
  209.      <category>RSS</category>
  210.      <category>Open RSS</category>
  211.      <category>Inoreader</category>
  212.      <category>Miniflux</category>
  213.      <category>RSS Readers</category>
  214.    <dc:creator>randy@kbcafe.com (Randy Charles Morin)</dc:creator></item>
  215.    <item>
  216.      <title><![CDATA[The RSS Blog Has a New RSS Feed]]></title>
  217.      <link>https://rssweblog.com/news/148/rss-blog-has-new-rss-feed</link>
  218.      <description><![CDATA[<p>The RSS Blog has added a new RSS feed hosted at our domain. Copy this URL into your feed reader of choice to get our blog posts every time we update:<p>
  219.  
  220. <p class="text-center"><a href="https://rssweblog.com/rss-feed">https://rssweblog.com/rss-feed</a></p>
  221.  
  222. <p>For most of this blog's existence we've been hosting our RSS feed at FeedBurner, the Google service that was once used for feed readership analytics and other feed enhancements. These days it only offers caching and proxy redirects. That feed will continue to work for the people who don't switch over. At one time this blog's feed had over 6,000 subscribers, according to FeedBurner.</p>
  223.  
  224. <p>There are still a lot of people getting that feed, which is appreciated as we resume regular posting again. Hosting the feed on this server means we'll be able to see what RSS readers and other software are requesting it, which is useful information when you're coming up with things to write about.</p>]]></description>
  225.      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Jul 2025 10:10:13 -0400</pubDate>
  226.      
  227.      <comments>https://rssweblog.com/news/148/rss-blog-has-new-rss-feed#discuss</comments>
  228.      <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:rssweblog.com,2004:weblog.148</guid>
  229.      <category>RSS</category>
  230.      <category>FeedBurner</category>
  231.      <category>RSS Feeds</category>
  232.    <dc:creator>randy@kbcafe.com (Randy Charles Morin)</dc:creator></item>
  233.    <item>
  234.      <title><![CDATA[Free Audiobooks on LibriVox Have RSS Feeds]]></title>
  235.      <link>https://rssweblog.com/news/147/free-audiobooks-librivox-have-rss-feeds</link>
  236.      <description><![CDATA[<figure class="text-center"><img src="https://rssweblog.com/media/this-crowded-earth-robert-bloch-librivox-audiobook.png" alt="Cover of the October 1958 issue of Amazing Stories magazine, which includes the novel This Crowded Earth by Robert Bloch. The cover depicts the story The Delegate From Venus and shows what appears to be a group of leaders at an organization such as the United Nations. Nameplates indicate that one man represents the U.S.S.R., another Japan and a third Denmark. In the foreground a robotic figure sits at a microphone before the nameplate Venus. The cover has this text: Amazing Science Fiction Stories: This Crowded Earth, novel by Robert Block. The Quantum Jump. The Delegate from Venus. October 1958. 35 cents" class="img-fluid img-thumbnail" width="500" /></figure>
  237.  
  238. <p>The free audiobook service <a href="https://librivox.org/">LibriVox</a>, which has volunteers narrating thousands of books in the public domain, offers an RSS feed for each book. Here's the RSS feed for <a href="https://librivox.org/this-crowded-earth-by-robert-bloch/">This Crowded Earth</a>, a 1958 science fiction novel by Robert Bloch: <a href="https://librivox.org/rss/2921">https://librivox.org/rss/2921</a>
  239.  
  240. <p>There's an <code>item</code> element in the feed for each chapter with an <code>enclosure</code> containing the audio of that chapter. Add the feed's URL to podcasting software to listen to the book as a podcast.</p>
  241.  
  242. <p>The book feeds are <a href="https://www.rssboard.org/rss-validator/check.cgi?url=https%3A%2F%2Flibrivox.org%2Frss%2F2921">valid RSS</a> but we have one suggestion for an improvement. The feeds could work in a wider range of podcast clients if there was a <a href="https://www.rssboard.org/rss-profile#element-channel-item-guid">guid element</a> in each item such as this:</p>
  243.  
  244. <code><p>&lt;guid isPermaLink="false">thiscrowdedearth_01_bloch_64kb.mp3&lt;/guid></p></code>
  245.  
  246. <p>This <code>guid</code> uses the filename of a chapter as the unique value. When there's no <code>guid</code> RSS readers look at the item's link for a possible unique identifier, but these feeds use the book's URL in every item.</p>]]></description>
  247.      <pubDate>Mon, 07 Jul 2025 09:25:47 -0400</pubDate>
  248.      
  249.      <comments>https://rssweblog.com/news/147/free-audiobooks-librivox-have-rss-feeds#discuss</comments>
  250.      <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:rssweblog.com,2004:weblog.147</guid>
  251.      <category>RSS</category>
  252.      <category>RSS Guid</category>
  253.      <category>Podcasting</category>
  254.      <category>Audiobooks</category>
  255.    <dc:creator>randy@kbcafe.com (Randy Charles Morin)</dc:creator><enclosure length="-1" type="application/rss+xml; charset=utf-8" url="https://librivox.org/rss/2921"/><itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit><itunes:subtitle>The free audiobook service LibriVox, which has volunteers narrating thousands of books in the public domain, offers an RSS feed for each book. Here's the RSS feed for This Crowded Earth, a 1958 science fiction novel by Robert Bloch: https://librivox.org/rss/2921 There's an item element in the feed for each chapter with an enclosure containing the audio of that chapter. Add the feed's URL to podcasting software to listen to the book as a podcast. The book feeds are valid RSS but we have one suggestion for an improvement. The feeds could work in a wider range of podcast clients if there was a guid element in each item such as this: &amp;lt;guid isPermaLink="false"thiscrowdedearth_01_bloch_64kb.mp3&amp;lt;/guid This guid uses the filename of a chapter as the unique value. When there's no guid RSS readers look at the item's link for a possible unique identifier, but these feeds use the book's URL in every item.</itunes:subtitle><itunes:author>Randy Charles Morin</itunes:author><itunes:summary>The free audiobook service LibriVox, which has volunteers narrating thousands of books in the public domain, offers an RSS feed for each book. Here's the RSS feed for This Crowded Earth, a 1958 science fiction novel by Robert Bloch: https://librivox.org/rss/2921 There's an item element in the feed for each chapter with an enclosure containing the audio of that chapter. Add the feed's URL to podcasting software to listen to the book as a podcast. The book feeds are valid RSS but we have one suggestion for an improvement. The feeds could work in a wider range of podcast clients if there was a guid element in each item such as this: &amp;lt;guid isPermaLink="false"thiscrowdedearth_01_bloch_64kb.mp3&amp;lt;/guid This guid uses the filename of a chapter as the unique value. When there's no guid RSS readers look at the item's link for a possible unique identifier, but these feeds use the book's URL in every item.</itunes:summary><itunes:keywords>bad,podcast</itunes:keywords></item>
  256.    <item>
  257.      <title><![CDATA[Skateboarder's New Trick is to Promote RSS]]></title>
  258.      <link>https://rssweblog.com/news/146/skateboarders-new-trick-promote-rss</link>
  259.      <description><![CDATA[<p>The RSS Blog now has a favorite freestyle skateboarder. Tony Gale is making sure that visitors to the website of his professional association <a href="https://mastodon.social/@coldkennels/114792204364294147">know about RSS</a>:</p>
  260.  
  261. <blockquote>
  262. <p>I've been working on the website for the WFSA -- the World Freestyle Skateboarding Association -- for the best part of a year.</p>
  263.  
  264. <p>It has become very apparent that next to no one knows what RSS is these days (or realizes that it still exists), and I think that needs to change -- so this is now on the sidebar for every article on the site.</p>
  265.  
  266. <p>RSS is the most useful tool possible for getting away from the "siloification" of the internet. It needs to be more widely used!</p>
  267. </blockquote>
  268.  
  269. <p>Here's a screenshot showing how Gale is promoting RSS. Great job!</p>
  270.  
  271. <figure class="text-center"><img src="https://rssweblog.com/media/rss-feeds-world-freestyle-skateboarding-association.png" alt="Screen capture of an article on the World Freestyle Skateboarding Association website. The sidebar links to three of its RSS feeds and contains this text: WFSA RSS Feeds: RSS feeds give you a way to subscribe to a website's posts and ensure you never miss anything -- just add the URL for the feed to your RSS reader of choice. Here's the different feeds for the WFSA: All Posts Contest Results Upcoming Events" class="img-fluid img-thumbnail" width="500" /></a></figure>]]></description>
  272.      <pubDate>Sat, 05 Jul 2025 10:06:58 -0400</pubDate>
  273.      
  274.      <comments>https://rssweblog.com/news/146/skateboarders-new-trick-promote-rss#discuss</comments>
  275.      <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:rssweblog.com,2004:weblog.146</guid>
  276.      <category>RSS</category>
  277.      <category>RSS feeds</category>
  278.      <category>Skateboarding</category>
  279.    <dc:creator>randy@kbcafe.com (Randy Charles Morin)</dc:creator></item>
  280.    <item>
  281.      <title><![CDATA[Feedle: The RSS-Powered Blog Search Engine]]></title>
  282.      <link>https://rssweblog.com/news/145/feedle-rss-powered-blog-search-engine</link>
  283.      <description><![CDATA[<figure class="text-center"><img src="https://rssweblog.com/media/feedle-blog-search-for-feedburner.png" alt="Screen shot of Feedle, a search engine for blogs and podcasts, showing results for the term 'FeedBurner.' The text of the page reads 'Feedle. Submit your blog or podcast. FAQ. Top Stories. It's a world of feeds! Latest blog posts / podcasts results for FeedBurner. RSS Feed: https://feedle.world/rss/?query=FeedBurner. Embed." class="img-fluid img-thumbnail" width="500" /></figure>
  284.  
  285. <p>The blogosphere has regrown some connective tissue with the presence of <a href="https://feedle.world/">Feedle</a>, a search engine for blogs and podcasts. Feedle is both a consumer and producer of <a href="https://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification">RSS</a>, as developer Preslav Rachev explained in the <a href="https://preslav.me/2022/10/27/feedle-a-world-of-rss-feeds/">launch announcement</a> from 2022:</p>
  286.  
  287. <blockquote>
  288. <p>The thing I like most about Feedle is that it is about making RSS feeds more accessible to the general public. And not just any RSS feeds. The team has decided to carefully curate what goes inside the index, focusing on the content by individuals and small organizations (startups, collectives, teams, etc.) first.</p>
  289.  
  290. <p>But what is Feedle after all? It is a dedicated search engine for blogs and podcasts -- anything with a public RSS feed. What makes it unique is that every search on Feedle is also its own RSS feed. This allows visitors to subscribe to topics of interest rather than hundreds of individual feeds.</p>
  291. </blockquote>
  292.  
  293. <p>To subscribe to an RSS feed for a search on Feedle, click the orange RSS button on a page of search results and the URL of the feed appears to the left of the button. Here's the feed for the term "RSS specification":</p>
  294.  
  295. <p><a href="https://feedle.world/rss/?query=RSS+specification">https://feedle.world/rss/?query=RSS+specification</a></p>
  296.  
  297. <p>Copy the URL and add the feed in your RSS reader.</p>
  298.  
  299. <p>Feedle has a submission form for bloggers seeking to be included in its database of blogs. The most recent count I've seen indicates there are 2,000 blogs in its database. There were once several popular blog search engines, including Technorati, Google Blog Search and IceRocket, but they've all shut down or morphed into something else. In the early days of blogging the best way to find people talking about your posts was on Technorati. Founder David Sifry shows up in the comments of The RSS Blog as we helped them tackle some bugs.</p>]]></description>
  300.      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Jul 2025 10:27:57 -0400</pubDate>
  301.      
  302.      <comments>https://rssweblog.com/news/145/feedle-rss-powered-blog-search-engine#discuss</comments>
  303.      <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:rssweblog.com,2004:weblog.145</guid>
  304.      <category>RSS</category>
  305.      <category>Blog Search</category>
  306.      <category>Feedle</category>
  307.      <category>Technorati</category>
  308.    <dc:creator>randy@kbcafe.com (Randy Charles Morin)</dc:creator><enclosure length="-1" type="application/rss+xml;charset=UTF-8" url="https://feedle.world/rss/?query=RSS+specification"/><itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit><itunes:subtitle>The blogosphere has regrown some connective tissue with the presence of Feedle, a search engine for blogs and podcasts. Feedle is both a consumer and producer of RSS, as developer Preslav Rachev explained in the launch announcement from 2022: The thing I like most about Feedle is that it is about making RSS feeds more accessible to the general public. And not just any RSS feeds. The team has decided to carefully curate what goes inside the index, focusing on the content by individuals and small organizations (startups, collectives, teams, etc.) first. But what is Feedle after all? It is a dedicated search engine for blogs and podcasts -- anything with a public RSS feed. What makes it unique is that every search on Feedle is also its own RSS feed. This allows visitors to subscribe to topics of interest rather than hundreds of individual feeds. To subscribe to an RSS feed for a search on Feedle, click the orange RSS button on a page of search results and the URL of the feed appears to the left of the button. Here's the feed for the term "RSS specification": https://feedle.world/rss/?query=RSS+specification Copy the URL and add the feed in your RSS reader. Feedle has a submission form for bloggers seeking to be included in its database of blogs. The most recent count I've seen indicates there are 2,000 blogs in its database. There were once several popular blog search engines, including Technorati, Google Blog Search and IceRocket, but they've all shut down or morphed into something else. In the early days of blogging the best way to find people talking about your posts was on Technorati. Founder David Sifry shows up in the comments of The RSS Blog as we helped them tackle some bugs.</itunes:subtitle><itunes:author>Randy Charles Morin</itunes:author><itunes:summary>The blogosphere has regrown some connective tissue with the presence of Feedle, a search engine for blogs and podcasts. Feedle is both a consumer and producer of RSS, as developer Preslav Rachev explained in the launch announcement from 2022: The thing I like most about Feedle is that it is about making RSS feeds more accessible to the general public. And not just any RSS feeds. The team has decided to carefully curate what goes inside the index, focusing on the content by individuals and small organizations (startups, collectives, teams, etc.) first. But what is Feedle after all? It is a dedicated search engine for blogs and podcasts -- anything with a public RSS feed. What makes it unique is that every search on Feedle is also its own RSS feed. This allows visitors to subscribe to topics of interest rather than hundreds of individual feeds. To subscribe to an RSS feed for a search on Feedle, click the orange RSS button on a page of search results and the URL of the feed appears to the left of the button. Here's the feed for the term "RSS specification": https://feedle.world/rss/?query=RSS+specification Copy the URL and add the feed in your RSS reader. Feedle has a submission form for bloggers seeking to be included in its database of blogs. The most recent count I've seen indicates there are 2,000 blogs in its database. There were once several popular blog search engines, including Technorati, Google Blog Search and IceRocket, but they've all shut down or morphed into something else. In the early days of blogging the best way to find people talking about your posts was on Technorati. Founder David Sifry shows up in the comments of The RSS Blog as we helped them tackle some bugs.</itunes:summary><itunes:keywords>bad,podcast</itunes:keywords></item>
  309.    <item>
  310.      <title><![CDATA[Reddit Post: 'Don't Fall for the Hype' About RSS]]></title>
  311.      <link>https://rssweblog.com/news/144/reddit-post-dont-fall-hype-rss</link>
  312.      <description><![CDATA[<p>After trying an RSS reader for a few days, a contributor on Reddit has <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/rss/comments/1lpv1jc/rss_is_disappointing_in_its_current_state_dont/">declared</a> that RSS is "kind of dog----" and not worth the hype. They don't like that many feeds contain the partial text of posts to get you to finish reading at the link:</p>
  313.  
  314. <blockquote>
  315. <p>So over the last 2 days I installed a local <a href="https://freshrss.org/">FreshRSS</a> instance.</p>
  316.  
  317. <p>Oh boy is it bad.</p>
  318.  
  319. <p>Most sites want you to read articles on their website to generate traffic, so they only provide headlines and small summaries in their feeds. So I'm forced to read the article on their website. This defeats the <strong>entire</strong> purpose of RSS. I'm sorry, if you are fine with this, you should configure Google News for 5 minutes (lets you subscribe to topics and websites) and you will have a better and more beginner friendly experience than RSS. I didn't set this up for hours just to read it on the original website.</p>
  320.  
  321. <p>But I didn't want to give up, so I really tried everything to fix this. I installed <a href="https://www.fivefilters.org/2017/full-text-rss-38/">Full-Text RSS 3.8</a>, which shows you the full text of the article inside RSS. This actually does work, but now the entire layout is fucked. Suddenly all images appear twice above each other, so you have to disable images. But there are also other slightly annoying layout bugs. Luckily, its possible to configure the displayed text by changing the URL. I actually spent a lot of time to learn this, and it kind of worked, but you need to do this on each site all over again, if they use different layouts its not working properly. I didn't set this up for hours just to read with an ugly layout.</p>
  322.  
  323. <p>I was still unhappy with everything, so I tried out <a href="https://rss-bridge.github.io/rss-bridge/">RSS-Bridge</a>. It didn't work for me so I stopped trying that.</p>
  324.  
  325. <p>What about all the websites that don't even offer RSS? What is the point of one central hub of information if it can't access most sites? ... Definitely unusable for normies, might be useful for people who are into software engineering with high patience and low standards.</p>
  326. </blockquote>
  327.  
  328. <p>Someone trying RSS for the first time is not going to find all the feeds they might want to follow in two days. RSS isn't a total replacement for using the web. There aren't full feeds of everything. There are a lot of partial feeds and sites that don't offer feeds at all, especially now that syndication is a normal part of the web and not the next big thing.</p>
  329.  
  330. <p>In my experience RSS readers that try to extract full text from web pages are always hit or miss, so I settle for what's in the feeds or unsubscribe if they are too limited in what they make available in feed items.</p>
  331.  
  332. <p>The person on Reddit went from overselling the premise of RSS ("one central hub") to underselling it ("kind of dog----"). I've used an RSS reader since the format was <a href="https://www.rssboard.org/rss-history">created by Ramanathan Guha and Dan Libby</a> at Netscape in 1999. It is useful, convenient and free from algorithmic manipulation and constant advertising. These traits are still vital on a web that has become increasingly terrible.</p>]]></description>
  333.      <pubDate>Wed, 02 Jul 2025 10:41:28 -0400</pubDate>
  334.      
  335.      <comments>https://rssweblog.com/news/144/reddit-post-dont-fall-hype-rss#discuss</comments>
  336.      <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:rssweblog.com,2004:weblog.144</guid>
  337.      <category>RSS</category>
  338.      <category>FreshRSS</category>
  339.      <category>Full-Text RSS</category>
  340.      <category>RSS-Bridge</category>
  341.      <category>Netscape</category>
  342.      <category>Reddit</category>
  343.    <dc:creator>randy@kbcafe.com (Randy Charles Morin)</dc:creator></item>
  344.    <item>
  345.      <title><![CDATA[Use Node to Post RSS Items Elsewhere]]></title>
  346.      <link>https://rssweblog.com/news/143/use-node-post-rss-items-elsewhere</link>
  347.      <description><![CDATA[<p>Echo is a Node script to post new items from an RSS feed to microblogging services and social media sites. It requires Node.js version 19, though some earlier versions might work, and installation instructions can be found on the <a href="https://github.com/rknightuk/echo">GitHub repository</a> for the project.</p>
  348.  
  349. <p>The script currently supports Micro.blog, Mastodon, Omnivote, GitHub and Webhooks.</p>]]></description>
  350.      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Jul 2023 10:32:42 -0400</pubDate>
  351.      
  352.      <comments>https://rssweblog.com/news/143/use-node-post-rss-items-elsewhere#discuss</comments>
  353.      <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:rssweblog.com,2004:weblog.143</guid>
  354.      <category>RSS</category>
  355.      <category>Mastodon</category>
  356.      <category>Micro.blog</category>
  357.    <dc:creator>randy@kbcafe.com (Randy Charles Morin)</dc:creator></item>
  358.  </channel>
  359. </rss>

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