RSS should be a core rather than a 'micro' feature.
When you want to add it retro-actively, the specifications are relatively straight forward and don't have many mandatory properties. RSS is a tad simple than Atom, but I'd probably rather go for Atom if I were to start over.
https://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification
https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/atom.html
In any case: add a link rel=feed to the header of every page to enable discovery (https://www.rssboard.org/rss-autodiscovery - but works regardless of the format)
If you're super old school and do an actual manual HTML site, just create the RSS file and add entries to it, then link to it. This is well documented and not in any way complex. It's just a text file, after all.
Make use to add an <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" href="feed.rss"> element and not just a normal hyperlink so that users can just paste your blog URL into their feed reader to subscribe without having to search for the feed link. Ideally this should be present in the page for both the index as well as every article.
I loved RSS, I sorely miss the protocol based internet rather than the web based internet we have now. I miss when my emails didn't have adverts pretending to be emails at the top of my inbox.
Advertising was a lot less prevalent when applications had protocols and you could simply move to a different client with fewer (or no) adverts.
But that's not the reality of the modern web.
And it doesn't do much good to pine for the past.
I can't comprehend where this notion that RSS is somehow "dead" is coming from. RSS is ubiquitous: every major blogging platform, aggregator, and other media site continues to offer feeds, including all of the major video sharing sites. The entire podcasting ecosystem is based on RSS.
I consume HN, Reddit, Lobste.rs, about a hundred blogs, a hundred podcasts, YouTube and lots of other sui generis stuff all via RSS feeds, subscribed in TT-RSS with Liferea as a frontend.
RSS hasn't gone away and is not going away.
> I loved RSS, I sorely miss the protocol based internet rather than the web based internet we have now.
It hasn't gone anywhere. If you miss it, consider the possibility that you yourself have followed the garden path away from it, and forgotten the way back.
But they can extended or innovated beyond!
There's just no candidates of note for any other strategies.
Here's a nickel, get yourself a better email client.
No thanks. I'll stick to RSS.
Considering that a podcast is an RSS feed, it's not like there's any other option. People using fancy modern podcast apps might not be interacting with the RSS feed directly, but the software they're using certainly is.
https://feeds.megaphone.fm/GLT1412515089
Looks like Megaphone is a real, honest-to-goodness podcast hosting service that's owned and operated by Spotify, with proper RSS feeds and everything.
JRE simply isn't a podcast anymore. It's just a Spotify channel.
I love the web & it's great solid platform. But rss holds a special place in my heart too. Calling rss "not the reality of the modern web", saying that we should just except captive experiences by the valent forces doesn't seem very web-like to me, doesn't bespeaks the user-agency that so critically distinguishes the web from everything else. The internet is for end users, rfc8890, and rss is a strong manifestation of that value.
If we do want to move on we have to make that new place.
My entire reading system is built on RSS but I don’t think it’s an invalid take to say that RSS is a thing of the past, or at the very least that the train has left the station. Every month I have some feed just randomly die because nobody paid attention or cares anymore. It’s pretty unfortunate.
Browsers should never have backed off exposing it, IMO.
No, but this isn't a contest of opinions. The claim that RSS unsupported, no longer in widespread use, and/or is merely a remnant of a previous era is factually incorrect.
> don’t think it’s an invalid take to say that RSS is a thing of the past
Sorry, but it's an invalid take. I don't know what sites you're using that stopped offering RSS, but I have hundreds of blogs, podcasts, and aggregators, along with my favorite subrreddits, YouTube channels, etc. all subscribed via RSS, and the only time anything "dies" is when a blog or podcast changes its URL.
I did not say they were factually correct, merely that I'd lump RSS in with "things of the past" given how many sites and developers neglect it nowadays. I was pretty clearly saying that their opinion isn't unfathomable to me.
The slow decline of RSS is not some new topic and this very site has discussed the topic for the better part of a decade. You're free to feel whatever you'd like tho.
I mean, I assume that number must be greater than zero, and yet I seem to be having a hard time identifying any sites or blogging applications that do indeed neglect RSS. All of the sites I frequent support it. Do you have any meaningful examples of this alleged lack of widespread RSS support?
> The slow decline of RSS is not some new topic
Unfortunately not -- people have been pretending it's happening for years without any real evidence to sustain the claim. If I were more of a conspiracy theorist, I'd suspect that maybe it's something they're trying to make happen.
I have email without advertisements.
Some web sites will have RSS, and you can add it to your own if you want to do. (Although I think Hina-Di is better in some ways)
Other protocols also are still used, even if not as commonly. (I use IRC and NNTP, too.)