PartHairCutJan 1
Dan Fixes Coin-Ops

I dunno guys I think it'd actually be better to make an RSS-first browser than an AI browser

RSS was good tech and it worked well, that's why google tried their hardest to kill it

it was never gonna take off with the general public because of the godawful name but for computers nerds like us it was perfect

and hell it's been long enough since google reader that you could legit hype it up as a new technology that's gonna improve everything about the way you use the net. The tech blogs would laugh about it but nobody reads those anyway except computers nerds

Firefox pls think of a better name for RSS and then make it front and centre of your browser, kthx

Dec 23 at 10:01pmWeb
Show threadDan Fixes Coin-OpsDec 31

I know RSS is still around, I use it myself, it's great

But it's not enough for Just Us to use it. It's no good if everybuggerelse is getting brainwormed by algorithms and slop, us Fedi Computers Knowing People are A Part Of This World and we don't get to escape living around the consequences of what's going on out there

Show threadDan Fixes Coin-OpsDec 31

But I do mean it about the name

Nothing with a name made out of letters you have to pronounce one at a time can ever achieve popularity outside of 1% of the techiest nerdiest tech nerds who ever nerded

Someone gotta unveil the amazing easy-to-use new technology "Storystream" and start stuffing it into every nook and cranny of tech and getting news people to spill ink all over it and when someone goes "☝️🤓 um isn't that just RSS" we all gotta stuff a bag over their head and hiss shut up shut up don't ruin this for us

Show threadAndrew (Television Executive)Dec 31
@ifixcoinops I thought it was Atom now?
Show threadDan Fixes Coin-OpsDec 31
@ajroach42 I mean that's as good a name as any and already ten times better than RSS
Show threadAndrew (Television Executive)Dec 31

@ifixcoinops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(web_standard)

Most RSS is atom these days, as I understand it.

Perhaps I'm wrong.

Either way, web sydnication needs better PR.

Atom (web standard) - Wikipedia

Show threadJohn WilsonDec 31

@ajroach42 @ifixcoinops I’m one of the 🤓and not only are RSS and Atom different things, there’s also different versions of each (especially RSS)

I don’t care if we rename it to StoryStream but please don’t change, add to, or modify the underlying protocol or else we’ll just have another new format to deal with

(Also I said to myself, “ah yes Atom is that new shit” and when looking it up to fact check myself for this post, I discovered that Atom was released 20 years ago 💀)

Show threadDan Fixes Coin-OpsDec 31

@crazybutable @ajroach42 oh no, not one change, not one bit, after all it Already Works and there's decades of stuff already out for it, just change the name and use some of that Mozilla CEO money to do a big marketing push.

"It's not an algorithm, it's Selectarithm" or some shit IDK I'm not a marketing guy

Show threaddefinitely just a musicianDec 31
@ajroach42 @ifixcoinops maybe we anagram it into “moat” and the logo is an alligator
Show threadbtdornDec 31
@ifixcoinops alright I’m in. Who do we throw money at to get the Atom Browser? “Build your own universe”
Show threadjerDec 31

@ajroach42

Dave Winer rolls in his grave—and he's not even dead yet!

@ifixcoinops

Show threadfundamentalDec 31
@ifixcoinops IMO this sort of happened. I remember people mentioning 'feeds' without specific reference to the underlying tech (RSS/Atom/etc).
Show threadCorbin DavenportDec 31
@ifixcoinops I definitely think “here’s your new tab page with new articles from sites you visited but you can also add or delete them if you want” would be cool and doesn’t need to mention RSS at all
Show threadNantucket LitDec 31
@ifixcoinops What would a feed-first browser look like, compared to a feed-reader like Liferea?
Show threadDan Fixes Coin-OpsDec 31
@nantucketlit It could start off like Firefox in like 2004 before they started taking the RSS stuff out, Live Bookmarks were awesome
Show threadMorgan ⚧️Dec 31
@ifixcoinops RSS aka "Really Simple Syndication" => Easy Syndication? => EaSy???
Show threadMad BDec 31

@ifixcoinops
Firefox Fast Follow

(Let's... Leave behind the s s initials...)

Show threadsarah tonin Dec 31

@ifixcoinops so, uhhhh

"updates feed" ?

Show threadInga stands with 🇺🇦 🇵🇸Dec 31
@ifixcoinops ✨ News Intelligence
Show threadOlivia VesperaDec 31
@ifixcoinops So many people don't know about RSS, the first step I've found is to tell folks about RSS and why it's valuable to them. But a lot of the value isn't readily apparent until you start finding feeds you want to follow. And what happens if the feeds they want don't exist?
Show threadsungoDec 31
@ifixcoinops they took away my flame thrower
Show threadMrCopilotDec 30
@ifixcoinops RCP? Really Complicated Publishing
Show threadsome kind of orange shapeDec 30
@mrcopilot @ifixcoinops Most "RSS" feeds are actually in the ATOM format, which makes it sound, well, nuclear age futuristic
Show threadMrCopilotDec 30

@clayote @ifixcoinops very 50s.

Really Skibidi Skeets ?

Show threadMr. Scam LikelyDec 30

@ifixcoinops For a little while there was a trend to call them "newsfeeds" or just "feeds", usually with an atom and RSS link.

But podcasts, damn did podcasts manage to brand RSS and get the tech out there. Lets hype it up as "like podcasts, but for news articles and blogs"

Show threadMaxDec 31
@unlofl @ifixcoinops you're not completely wrong, but you did make me uneasy.
Show threadAsta [AMP]Dec 30
@ifixcoinops "skip the LLM middle man: get the prompt, directly, via Syndicated Prompts!"

dies from infinite vomiting at playing the marketing game even as a joke
Show threadBean Club Dec 30
@ifixcoinops Amazingly Simple Syndication
Show threadJessamynDec 30
@ifixcoinops I set up a new blog in 2025 like some sort of weirdo and one of the things I checked right off the bat was whether the RSS feed worked. And it did. What a great technology.
Show threadMauve 👁💜Dec 30
@ifixcoinops What would the "browser" part of it do that couldn't be done in a regular web app?
Show threadJeremy KunDec 31
@mauve @ifixcoinops oooh I can think of a few: search bar that prioritizes sites you subscribe to via RSS, new tab page that shows the most recent article in the RSS feed from your top ten feeds, pre-load sites in your feed so it's snappier to visit them.
Show threadAlaric Snell-PymDec 31
@j2kun @mauve @ifixcoinops yeah. I'd add: Bookmark a site and if the page has RSS it's now in your feed (shown on new tab/window), and bookmarks with feeds get a little symbol you can press to open a submenu of things from the feed of just that site. And I'd call it all "feeds", "this site has a feed", etc...
Show threadMauve 👁💜Dec 31
@kitten_tech @j2kun @ifixcoinops Very interesting! I've been thinking of doing some stuff along these lines (For ActivityPub) in @agregore , but RSS seems like an even better target. Plus it being read only simplifies a lot.
Show threadJeremy KunDec 31
@mauve @kitten_tech @ifixcoinops @agregore I bet a solid RSS-forward browser would also make it much easier to integrate and incentivize more indie web stuff like web mentions, though that surely would be harder to get right
Show threadMauve 👁💜Dec 31
@j2kun @kitten_tech @ifixcoinops @agregore Yeah the hard part there IMO is connecting the browser to whatever home server you have for initiating tge mentions. I feel like detecting mentionable pages to then redirect to your server of choice could be doable. easier in the ActivityPub case for stuff that implements the client-server API
Show threadcalcifer Dec 31
@j2kun @mauve @ifixcoinops when visiting a page in your feed, UI elements that let you go to the next/previous item in the feed would be amazing.
Show threadMauve 👁💜Dec 31
@calcifer @j2kun @ifixcoinops Oh! I remember Opera had that at one point. I've been meaning to add it but I'm not sure what the most reliable method to get the "next page" is. I've also added a "go up" so you can navigate to parent directories.
Show threadcalcifer Dec 31
@mauve @j2kun @ifixcoinops for pages in a feed, “next” is the next one listed in the feed, so it’s a lot easier than solving the general case of “what counts as a next page?” (since almost no one is providing that meta data per the spec)
Show threadDan Fixes Coin-OpsDec 31
@mauve all the stuff that Firefox used to do back in like 2004, but most of all have the bookmark toolbar highlight sites that had been updated since you visited last
Show threadGrey the earthlingDec 31
@mauve @ifixcoinops Something like Blog Quest which snaffles feeds as you browse, but: the new tab page shows a few items each from your frecently-visited sites, and you can “pin a site” (subscribe to the RSS feed).
Show threadirina 🐇🌷Dec 30
@ifixcoinops my first idea was Firefox Syndicate, but sounds too much like a cartel
Show threadErrant  Dec 31
@irina @ifixcoinops Grizzly
(With the letters RSS hidden in the genus: Ursus)
Show threadA.B. MurrowDec 30

@ifixcoinops

*slaps roof of RSS feed*

"You won't believe how simple the syndication is, folks"

*looks inside*

*Unfathomable, incomprehensible miles of XML stare back, unblinkingly*

Show threadA.B. MurrowDec 30
@ifixcoinops To be clear, I have no objection to Somebody making an RSS first browser, as long as that somebody is, in fact, able to stare back at the XML without fear.
Show threadDan Cassidy 🦌Dec 30
@ifixcoinops textcasts
Show threadDan Fixes Coin-OpsDec 31
@whimsy that's the best name fedi has come up with yet and it's still a tonguetwister
Show threadDan Cassidy 🦌Dec 31
@ifixcoinops blogcasts?
That's probably even worse
Show threadOblomovDec 31
@ifixcoinops «but how do you monetize this?» :-(
Show threadbtdornDec 31

@ifixcoinops RSS used to be a part of every browser! I was so shocked when the built-in buttons and readers went away. But as a technology, it never went away. Most sites still include it because it’s just a part of the tech stack now, I guess. I think the only thing that changed was people’s awareness of it (because it was hidden from them).

Really good RSS reader apps are still around. If you want it back, just start using one.

Show threadcalcifer Dec 31
@btdorn @ifixcoinops unfortunately a lot of sites have quietly dropped their feeds; or if the feed exists, they’ve removed the discovery hints (like the link rel tag in the page header)
Show threadgorse horseDec 31
@ifixcoinops you need a decent software ecosystem first. Get a bunch of feed reader developers across different OSes to agree on a name together, improve their UX, and more importantly to agree to work together on new features like replies. Only then will a scheme like this work.
Show threadMarcos DioneDec 31
@ifixcoinops maybe we should take a hint from the Murderbot book series (yes, I know, still geeky) and call them "the feeds" instead.
Show threadGrey the earthlingDec 31
@mdione @ifixcoinops I think for a while circa 2004 we used to call them “web feeds”.
Show threadMarcos DioneDec 31
@greytheearthling @ifixcoinops yeah, and let's not forget that feeds come in two flavors: RSS and Atom. At least the second one is not a bunch of letters.
Show threadcalcifer Dec 31

@ifixcoinops @lmorchard it wasn’t all that inaccessible, tbh. Call it a “web feed” and people are interested (though many will ask “why that when I have Facebook/  / whatever”, and a good answer is important).

The issue for adoption in the day was “yet another app”, because the feed readers built into browsers and mail programs were pretty rough. Baking it into a browser is good.