Flutterby™! : Google Reader & destruction of civilization

Google Reader & destruction of civilization

2020-11-19 19:54:31.118028+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments

Aspects of this theory are compelling: RT Vinay Gupta @leashless

Was Google's decision to kill Google Reader actually the key turning point in the destruction of western civilization?

Kills the decentralized web, gives rise to Twitter and Facebook becoming the algorithmic overlords. Maybe @dsearls @davewiner @disappearinjon @rezendi @miniver

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: Google Reader & destruction of civilization made: 2020-11-21 15:29:18.922749+00 by: brainopener

Related idea from a little while ago: https://twitter.com/anildash/status/980930699271245825

Random RSS thoughts:

I remember parsing RSS being straightforward for single feed but a real pain for lots of random feeds (is it RSS or ATOM? Which version? Did some improper HTML text escaping sneak in to the title?)
A lot of that I'd say is typical of XML silliness. If RSS was something that came along a bit later, I'd imagine it would be JSON based (and probably thought about as a standard REST API).
Remember PubSubHubbub?

#Comment Re: Google Reader & destruction of civilization made: 2020-11-21 23:40:25.91939+00 by: spc476

Dave Winer did just as much to kill RSS as Google by refusing to clarify the specification while at the same time shouting to all who could hear about the standard. That's why we got ATOM, which fixed a ton of issues with RSS.

Oh, and there is now a JSON feed standard so you don't have to imagine anymore (and yes, my own blog supports all three standards).

#Comment Re: Google Reader & destruction of civilization made: 2020-11-25 17:03:17.630082+00 by: Dan Lyke

Yeah, my personal laptop is still in the shop (serious side-eye to ASUS on the repair time here...), but RSSyl is not great about malformed feeds.

OTOH, it was working, mostly, and though marked up HTML so that the entire thing just happens in the regular web page would be great, I think the web as a personal publishing platform is pretty over and we're going to have to have some other technology which doesn't rely on people keeping WordPress exploits patched, and doesn't cost additional hosting fees per month, if we're going to have a new generation of personal publishing.

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