Why are so many rss feeds essentially useless for portable devices? I use =
Avant Go to read news. I download it to my ppc each morning.
Take for example The Register site. Ever tried rss’ing their news?
Here’s a prime example from today’s rss feed:
Heading: “Power cut hits Plusnet”
Info in rss: “Site down”
Why is it down? Where’s the meat of the story? Oh! You have to click the =
link to read more, but that requires an active connection.
Another..
Heading: “Top bean counter to quit C&W”
Info: “So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbyee..,”
Digg.com is just as useless with headings such as “Best.. game.. ever!” and =
info “I dare you to play this game and not like it. In fact if you don’t =
like it then I don’t like you!”.
More.. Heading: “Sony’s Universal Media Disc facing last rites” Info: “poor =
sony, when it rains it pours!!”.
These types of RSS feeds are useless unless you have an always-on internet =
connection (expensive) or a desktop aggregator. The net is abundant with =
this stuff.
Here’s an idea for a useful use of rss:
Let people sign up to your website and sign up for subjects they are =
interested in (eg training courses). The web application creates customised =
rss feeds to subscribe to and members can use a desktop rss aggregator or =
mobile one to download a chapter a day. Then they could read it on the =
train or bus. I know I’d love to see tutorials offered this way. Learn Ruby =
on Rails via Rss!
Authors could even offer downloadable chapters of their books via RSS. =
Members could read a chapter a day.
It would be a novel (!) idea for amateur writers.
I’d program it myself but I just don’t have the time nor experience.
You could even set up a subscription model and charge to be a site =
member.
April 3rd, 2006 at 1:47 pm - Edit
RSS gives me girlwood