AWS Lambda function for converting of Telegram channel to RSS feed | Hacker News Reader

AWS Lambda function for converting of Telegram channel to RSS feed

github.com

Related: I've written a Python tool (CLI) that exports Telegram channels to static webpages.

The killer feature of the telegram app imo is the translations, does your tool do translations?

I’m not that poster, but it doesn’t look like it does. On the other hand, it creates websites that I think chrome will automatically translate for you.

An alternative is to use rss-bridge: https://rss-bridge.org/bridge01/?action=display&bridge=Teleg...

Can someone clarify, for me, why this is desirable? I love RSS for blogs and podcasts, but in my understanding Telegram is nothing more than a group messaging platform, like WhatsApp/Google Chat/MMS, and not a publishing platform like Tumblr/Twitter/Mastodon, or even Reddit where there's incentive to lurk and subscription mechanics.

So, I'm willing to believe Telegram has public feeds of some kind, but sufficient traction to warrant RSSyndication? Why would anyone not use a real [micro]blog?

I'll hazard a guess: link-dropping telegram groups that operate as a sort of team posting platform from privileged members to which subordinate members can't respond?

Telegram is a publishing platform. It's a big deal in the post-soviet countries. The "channels" thing is widely used for publishing by media, gov and bloggers. It's more like social network than plain messenger for a long time already.

I did similar rss-like implementation for my own needs because of frustration of reading and experience, also there is a bunch of similar services.

The reason for not using microblogging is engagement. No one will read it and no one comment on it. Telegram had built-in comments for channel post and people actively interacting here.

I'm somewhat popular blogger in my niche and so far telegram is the best channel I have. I repost all stuff to my own site and medium, but it gain a fraction of views and interactions I get on telegram.

Yeah, this is correct. Even the Ukrainian government have a Telegram channel for announcements.

edit: Unsurprisingly, the author of this repo is Belarusian :)

You are right, Telegram is VERY popular media platform in Eastern Europe. In particular it's very popular tool to resist government's censorship and propaganda in such dictatorship's states like Russia or Belarus. People are put in jail even if they just read some opposition telegram channels, so using bridges like this one is an attempt to mitigate those risks.

I made an alternative in Flask before, I'm not a big fan of lambda myself.

https://gitlab.com/NourEddineX/tgrss

Does this need a telegram account with associated phone number?

All telegram numbers have to be associated with a phone unless you buy an account via their blockchain.

https://telegram.org/blog/ultimate-privacy-topics-2-0

No, in this implementation I just scrap web-version of the Telegram and don't use their API. For more complex parsing of telegram posts (like extraction of attachments, user reactions and replies) you will need to use their API and for sure it will require to have an account

There's also TelegramRSS: https://github.com/xtrime-ru/TelegramRSS

I am curious if this is the cheapest aws option for doing such a simple task.

I wonder if there is a way this can be done with a step function, where the price comes out cheaper than spinning up a lambda.

Alternatives:

Google Cloud Functions

CloudFlare workers

Yahoo Pipes

Wait what year is it

Thank you for triggering the long-dormant neuron in my brain that remembers working with Yahoo Pipes.

i remember evangelising yahoo pipes in college :)

I mean if you're using it for personal use, then you'll almost certainly not even approach the end of the free tier.

Free tier is 1 year or so? At least that is what Amazon tells me.

Lambda free tier is pretty generous. If it's not free tier the pricing is also very small relative to running a server to do this

Some of it is a year, some of it like Lambda invocations is perpetual.

Actually there are few options how potentially do it even more cheaper - for example switch to arm-based lambdas or optimize execution time. Actually I don't have yet any statistics how much it could cost for me (I use it for about 50 Telegram channels and my RSS client check for updates in the feed every hour), but looks like I will not even rich AWS free tear limit in 1 million free executions.

This is pretty sweet!

Thank you!

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