
Why Podcasting Still Needs RSS - chrisrhoden
https://about.radiopublic.com/why-podcasting-still-needs-rss-6a2779e94e96
======
kgwxd
Everything still needs RSS! There is no better way of getting notifications. I
don't have to create an account, I don't have to give out my email and I don't
have to re-search through everything I've already read or decided not to read.
I canceled my YouTube account a while ago, realized I sort of missed a few
channels and found myself just trying to remember to check their pages every
now and then. Then I realized YouTube channels actually have hidden RSS feeds.
The experience is better than what you get with a YouTube account. The number
you see next to the channel actually indicates the number of videos uploaded
to that channel that you haven't seen yet. I still have no clue what the
numbers next to subscribed channels meant when I had an account.

~~~
bhrgunatha
I rely on RSS for podcasts (which I love) and also for both news and
information.

I've found nothing better for having a single place where you choose the
content and absorb the information at your own pace.

I'm in the minority preferring a desktop application though - so it an sit in
the background and I can switch to it for short 5-minute burst every couple of
hours rather than visiting a web site.

Sadly there seem to be no desktop apps that are maintained anymore. I'm
currently using RSSOwl, but it's no longer being maintained and has started
crashing regularly.

~~~
myrion
Thunderbird supports getting RSS and Atom feeds, though it is a bit big for
_only_ getting feeds.

~~~
bhrgunatha
I already use Thunderbird for mail so I'm going to try it and see how it goes.

------
tracker1
For that matter, I think RSS is still needed for blog aggregation and
reading... Since google killed reader and iGoogle, I find myself only reading
a handful of sites regularly.

~~~
aylons
If you haven't yet, give Newsblur a try. A very powerful and efficient
interface, also integrates well with Newsrob, a free-as-in-freedom Android
reader.

~~~
onli
Could you link me to the current home of the newsrob project you are using?
All I find seems to be unmaintained.

~~~
aylons
You're right - Newsrob is the old name. Now it is called GrazeRSS
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grazerss&h...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grazerss&hl=en)

It is strictly in Maintenance mode, but still works and do its job well.

~~~
onli
Thanks! I'm currently implementing api access for my feedreader
([https://github.com/onli/feedtragon](https://github.com/onli/feedtragon)) and
having another client available would be very useful. Though I'm not sure yet
whether it can access a custom url with the greader api (many clients sadly
can't, they are hardwired to specific services).

~~~
aylons
GrazeRSS is somewhat hard wired, but it has support for at least a few feed
managers (Newsblur is not the only one). Maybe it is possible to just change
the URL.

------
smagch
I'm using feedly.com for reading tech blogs. For long articles, I use
getpocket.com to read it later instead of Feedly's 'Read it later' feature.

Both service give me the hints of popularity of the article. Pocket adds 'Best
Of' label for popular articles. Feedly adds a number of 'Read it later'.

I'm currently using Feedly for subscribing podcasts. But it's not handy to
use. If RadioPublic give me the same feature that feedly and pocket provide
for the sake of podcast listening, I'll definitely use the service.

------
gkya
RSS/Atom are second to e-mail in being called obsolete every other day with a
million contender technologies (Flipboard, Google Currents, whatever else came
out this morning...) yet still surviving and indeed being as relevant as what
you're gonna have for the dinner today. So logical it's natural.

------
erikrothoff
I'm one of the thousand who run an RSS service (feeder.co), and we're still
growing! From speaking with our users, it's evident that the uses for RSS and
similar open standards are endless.

It can make you feel really small at times when the product you are creating
is standing on the shoulder of not-so-benevolent giants. For example,
Craigslist apparently hates when somebody actually uses their feeds. They IP
ban anyone doing a pretty regular amount of requests per hour, and are
completely impossible to get ahold of. (have you seen their forum?) When our
spiders are blocked by Craigslist, our users suffer. And then they come to us
asking why feeder doesn't work...

------
cJ0th
On a related note: I find it sad that Mozilla hide the button for rss
subscriptions in recent Firefox versions. You can restore it when you
customize your toolbar (i.e. leftclick in the tab area -> customize ...) but
that prevents people who don't use rss yet to "discover" it so to speak.

~~~
type0
I really don't understand this move by Mozilla, why did they hide it and put
Pocket instead!?

------
lkrubner
Those of you who want the history of RSS (and why Atom seemed necessary) might
be interested by a long article I wrote in 2006:

RSS has been damaged by in-fighting among those who advocate for it

[http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/rss-has-been-
damaged-...](http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/rss-has-been-damaged-by-
in-fighting-among-those-who-advocate-for-it)

------
firasd
I'm making a podcast discovery app (info in profile). My plan is, if I
(hopefully!) get enough critical mass to get podcast publishers' attention, to
switch over to preferring Atom feeds. Just because Apple made a decision in
2005 doesn't mean we have to be stuck with it.

I hope, given the combined efforts of people in this space, we can break
podcasts out of the grip of the iTunes store (e.g. Why do podcasts need
reviews? Have you ever seen a Youtube video where someone urged you to leave a
review? It's because reviews catch the attention of iTunes store curators, but
Youtube does more automated personalization.)

~~~
dublinben
I really wonder why Apple and iTunes still have so much influence in the
podcast space. They have less than 40% market share in the US, their strongest
market. In Europe, Android has greater than 75% market share. Is the
podcasting audience so different than the mobile market in general? If not,
why do so many publishers act as if iTunes is the only place that people find
podcasts these days?

~~~
firasd
It's because Apple integrated podcasts really early and everyone else has
still been ignoring them. I know someone who switched from a Windows Phone to
an iPhone spurred in part by the desire to listen to podcasts. Google is
slowly lumbering into the podcasts space but it's under their Google Play
Music umbrella so it's hobbled by being part of that product (e.g. if Google
Music hasn't launched in your country you can't listen to podcasts.)

~~~
dublinben
>if Google Music hasn't launched in your country you can't listen to podcasts

This is such an Apple-centric way of thinking. Google launched their first
podcasting app (Google Listen) in 2009. It was only discontinued in 2012 after
there were a plethora of better apps in the Play Store. If you care about
podcasts at all, you weren't waiting for them to be integrated into Google
Play Music. You've been using one of the dozens of excellent 3rd party clients
that have been available for years.

------
chrisrhoden
Author of the post here, happy to provide any clarification or answer
questions!

~~~
_kyran
Hey Chris! I run a podcast hosting/publishing service
([https://zencast.fm](https://zencast.fm)) and am curious to hear more about
what other metadata you'd like to include in a feed aside from greatest hits?

~~~
chrisrhoden
Hi there! That's awesome.

The short answer is, we're still figuring it out! Part of the approach we're
taking is about letting us test things with real users against live feeds
without bugging people every time we change our minds (about the content of
the extensions or about the format of them), and we're still at the very early
phases.

The somewhat longer answer is, we know we would like to get better promotional
/ onboarding data from the feeds - including things like a 140 character
description for the feed that references similar content from other media
(like tv), or the best gateway episodes to present new users with. Ordering is
a big one, for shows that are e.g. serialized, or even for shows with short,
strictly ordered series embedded (think 2 part specials in a daily news feed).
The folks at [https://syndicated.media](https://syndicated.media) (including
me) have been keeping track of ideas on Github
([https://github.com/syndicated-media/sn-
spec/issues](https://github.com/syndicated-media/sn-spec/issues)), and you
would be most welcome in the slack group for syndicated media, where things
are just starting to pick up. Shoot me an email if you would like an invite!

------
benzimmer
Hey Chris,

thank you for your article and the ideas in it!

I'm co-founder of Podigee [www.podigee.com], a podcast hosting service.

We're active contributors to the Podlove Project [www.podlove.org], which
seems to have kind of the same "mission" as syndicated.media.

We also try to push existing standards and try to establish new ones, some of
which you can find here:
[http://podlove.org/specifications/](http://podlove.org/specifications/)

Additionally the initiative creates open-source software like the Podlove
Publisher [[http://podlove.org/podlove-podcast-
publisher/](http://podlove.org/podlove-podcast-publisher/)] and Subscribe
Button [[http://podlove.org/podlove-subscribe-
button/](http://podlove.org/podlove-subscribe-button/)], that make podcaster's
lives a little easier.

Perhaps we can setup a Skype session with some contributors of both
syndicated.media and Podlove. I bet that would be an interesting conversation
:)

Cheers, Ben

~~~
chrisrhoden
Hi Ben, that would be great! I am indeed familiar with Podlove and I think
there is a little bit of overlap. I don't personally control syndicated.media
but can forward an email to the person who does - can you reach out to me on a
private channel? My email is in the post.

------
Dowwie
Of course podcasting still needs RSS. I don't use itunes, stitcher, nor any
app for a specific platform (soundcloud).

------
WhitneyLand
None of the good things you mention seem to require new investment in XML, I'm
not sure what benefits you see in it.

Why not just maintain existing functionality in RSS, and at the same time
design a new format than is modern, simple, and extensible? The modern format
could be linked to or embedded within the legacy format as long as needed.

Newer clients could continue reading the legacy format while adding support
for the modern format. Older clients would continue to work indefinitely.

This would allow a gentle transition and allow new investment in XML code to
cease.

I'm not religiously against XML, but there are many practical benefits to not
using it when possible.

~~~
chrisrhoden
It is an interesting thought. I think it's hard for me to imagine the benefits
of moving on from XML overcoming the pain of supporting both formats for
literally everyone involved (producers and apps), and RSS is, despite its
shortcomings, quite mature. If you are proposing hanging additional data off
of RSS with a link but continuing to fetch the RSS for basic episode data, I
think it is self evident why that is fraught. And if you are suggesting having
an alternative representation, I guess I worry about reliving the pain of the
early days, with lots of format fighting and incomplete / incorrect
implementations.

How do you see this working?

~~~
WhitneyLand
Chris, it's only intuition, i'd have to research RSS more to respond
precisely.

However I'm impressed by the fact that you are thoughtfully considering the
comments here and taking the time to reply to them. That's always a sign of a
good architect, and I look forward to seeing the progress your team makes.

------
thomersch_
Really staggered to see work on Podcasting and not even mentioning or
considering Podlove [http://podlove.org/](http://podlove.org/)

They are already working for several years on improvements and standards for
publishing and consuming podcasts. E.g. Podlove defined how to deliver chapter
marks inside a feed and implemented it in their Wordpress based Podcast
Publishing Software.

~~~
chrisrhoden
I am familiar with podlove, and the work on chapters in particular are
interesting, but they face the exact problems I talked about in the post -
they are mostly being designed in a vacuum. Apps are slow to add support for
nonexistent data, and producers will never add data that will not be used
(it's hard enough to correctly fill in the stuff that will be used!)

------
iand675
Last time I looked, RSS and Atom didn’t have pagination support and many RSS
feeds only show the most recent N items. I'd say solving that issue to make
feeds more browseable would be a significant improvement for the way that I
want to use them.

------
PretzelFisch
Why would you need a GUID? When you have a URL?

~~~
chrisrhoden
So, in the RSS spec, the <guid> tag is used to identify individual posts.
Without some sort of identifier, it's hard to know if a user has e.g. already
heard something in a feed (because new things can be added and old things can
be removed).

GUIDs, as defined in the RSS spec, are also not required to be globally unique
- they're only supposed to be unique to the feed that includes them. This,
combined with the fact that a feed that doesn't include them at all is still
completely valid, is usually a pretty big stumbling block for developers
looking to consume RSS. This is the biggest issue that got talked about during
the Atom vs RSS discussion of a decade ago.

And if you're referring to the UUID I'm automatically adding to every feed,
it's so that there is an unchanging canonical way to refer to a feed that
follows it across URL changes etc. The sibling comments get it perfectly.

~~~
Animats
My experience with processing RSS feeds is that none of the uniqueness
indicators in feeds really work. The only thing that works is hashing the
content and discarding duplicates. Etags are especially useless. There are
sites with a load balancer in front of multiple servers, each with its own
etag.

As I've pointed out before, RSS feeds remain in widespread use for hard news.
Almost all the hard news sites, including AP, NYT, Reuters, VOA, the BBC, etc.
have useful RSS feeds. There are RSS feeds from NASA, feeds which tell you
what Congress is doing right now, National Weather Service alerts, missing kid
alerts, and California fire incidents. There's even a Donald Trump RSS feed.
If it matters, it's on RSS.

Social has gone in a different direction, but that's just the social media
industry.

------
monksy
This seems like an easy problem to resolve. Revive the standards body for this
protocol. Create a new group that will define the spec and schema, convince
others to use this and you're good to go. Unless you need to remove elements,
it should be pretty simple to expand on what's already there.

To me it doesn't make any sense to bemoan that it is in XML.. so what. It
includes a schema and can be validated. That's a good thing. Don't throw json
into this.

~~~
chrisrhoden
I have to be honest, I find it a little frustrating that you would not spend
the estimated 6 minutes it would take you to read a post I spent hours writing
before you put me down in a comment.

