WEBVTT - Whatever happened to RSS? 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.360 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:16.120 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:19.400 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:22.599 are you? And from the beginning of this episode, I'm 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:25.160 going to get the cringe out of the way at 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:28.319 the beginning and adopt an old, tiny voice just for 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:32.879 the purposes of the intro. So, there are lots of 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:36.559 different ways to access content on the web, and I 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:39.640 know that's a lame and obvious thing to say, but 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:43.680 I kind of start somewhere, and in ye olden days 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:46.320 of the web, you used a browser on a desktop 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:50.560 computer to navigate to a specific website. And in those 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:55.480 old days, web pages were often unchanging. They were static. 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:58.480 It was like open it up a book and reading 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:01.800 the specific passage. You just put that book right back 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:04.480 on the shelf and forget about it for years and 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:06.960 come back to it. Open up that book, go to 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:10.280 that bookmark that passage won't have changed because it's a 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:14.920 book and books don't do that. Gradually, the web matured, 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.320 New tools made it possible update web pages without having 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:22.039 to reinvent the wheel each time. This meant there'd be 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:26.280 a reason to return to a web page again and again. Okay, 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:30.560 I'm gonna drive that now. But returning the web pages 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.680 also created frustration. You might go to the trouble of 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:36.920 typing in a web page as URL or following a 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:39.960 bookmark if you were a civilized person, and you would 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:42.520 discover that maybe the page hadn't been updated since the 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:44.480 last time you were on, and you wasted all that 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:46.840 time and effort going to a web page that hasn't 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:48.600 changed since the last time you were there. Think of 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:51.520 all the amazing things you could have done if you 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.440 had already known there wasn't anything new there. Maybe you 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:58.840 could have, I don't know, created a new hobby or something. Conversely, 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.320 you might go to a web page after not having 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:04.120 visited it for several weeks, and then you see that 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:06.760 while you were gone, the web administrator held a really 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:10.600 cool contest, and you totally would have won that contest, 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:14.240 except it's already over now and you didn't know that 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:19.320 there had been an update, and so you missed your chance. Curses. Fortunately, 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:24.240 a new technology emerged in the late nineties that would 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:27.639 make it easier to stay current with web page updates. 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:30.800 On the user side of things. It also would make 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:36.080 it possible to create a subscription model for content like podcasts. 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:40.079 So this came out of the company Netscape. Originally, Netscape 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:44.200 was the Mosaic Communications Corporation, and Netscape had introduced an 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:49.520 early and incredibly popular web browser, the Netscape Navigator, and 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:53.120 in the early to mid nineties, Netscape Navigator was the 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:57.280 dominant web browser. However, by the late nineties, Netscape was 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:01.040 taking a beating from Microsoft's Internet Explorer. The story behind 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:04.200 that gets into the Great Browser Wars of the late nineties, 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:07.600 but that's really a matter for a different episode. Let's 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.520 just say by the late nineties, Netscape Navigator was no 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:14.520 longer the dominant web browser on the market. But around 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:19.120 this time Netscape started to develop this new technology, and 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:23.200 it also got a new corporate overlord. AOL announced in 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.480 nineteen ninety eight that it would acquire Netscape, which it 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.760 did in the spring of nineteen ninety nine. Around that 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:33.440 time is also when Netscape introduced its technology it had 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.600 been developing, which was called RSS. So what does RSS 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:42.400 stand for, Well, it could stand for really simple syndication, 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:47.200 or it stands for rich Site Summary, or with the 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:52.200 original announcement, it actually stood for RDF Site Summary. RDF 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:56.040 in turn stands for Resource Description Framework. So really it 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.720 ends up depending upon whom you ask. So originally I 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.280 guess you could say it was RDF site summary, but 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:08.160 over time this changed. Whatever you say RSS stands for 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:13.279 the technology's ultimate use would become the same. It ultimately 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:17.279 made it easier for users to stay current with web 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:22.039 page updates. That wasn't necessarily the intention when it was 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.680 first being developed, but that's how it ended up being used. 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.720 So a website that included an RSS feed was one 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:32.239 where users could subscribe to that page and the page 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:38.600 would syndicate updates to wherever the user had installed that subscription. 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:42.880 We'll get to that in a little bit. Now. I'm 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:46.479 skipping over a lot of early RSS stuff. There were 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.359 lots of other elements at play in those early days, 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:54.640 including a similar web syndication technology called scripting News, and 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.360 some elements of scripting News would actually merge into the 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:04.160 developing RSS technology as it would evolve from version to version. 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:09.279 Then there became a disagreement within the RSS developer community 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.640 about how to evolve the technology. You had one side 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:17.080 that wanted to keep changes relatively small, primarily to adhere 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:20.479 to this philosophy of maintaining a simple technology, the fear 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:23.440 being if it gets too complicated, people won't use it. 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:26.640 You had others in the community who wanted to build 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:30.239 in a lot more functionality with RSS, but that would 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:33.520 necessitate a more complex approach, and that could become a 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:37.200 barrier for adoption. Interesting side note, one of the folks 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:41.080 pushing for the more functionality side was a fourteen year 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:46.560 old named Aaron Swartz, who would later co found Reddit. Tragically, 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.919 Swarts would take his own life in twenty thirteen while 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:55.160 the focus of aggressive prosecution from MIT and Massachusetts authorities, 0:05:55.600 --> 0:06:00.920 but that's a story for another day. The disagree between 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:04.839 these two camps of developers led to a fork in 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:08.400 RSS development. So on one side you had the more 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:13.560 methodical and arguably conservative evolution of the technology. On the 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:17.000 other you had the more extensive changes and additions, which 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.400 would become RSS one point zero. And in two thousand 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.400 and three, RSS would fork a second time, meaning now 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:27.000 you had three competing versions, the third of which, however, 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:32.000 would become known as ATOM, so it wasn't another confusing 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:38.039 RSS designation. Eventually, the more conservative version of RSS would 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:40.479 become the most widely adopted, and it would become known 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:43.640 as RSS two point zero. So yeah, you had three 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.920 different versions of RSS out there, although the two point 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:51.120 zero one would become arguably the most ubiquitous. Now Over 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:55.279 on the user side, the general public accessing the web 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:59.080 largely remained unaware of RSS at all, no matter which 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.240 fork you talked about. It just wasn't a technology that 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.479 most people had heard about. But what would emerge over 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:09.359 time is that the user would end up relying upon 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:13.520 an aggregator called a feed reader. And this could be 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:16.600 a desktop based application, so an actual program you would 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:19.400 open up, kind of similar to a web browser, or 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:22.559 it might be entirely web based, a website that you would 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.240 go to in order to look for updates to all 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.200 the web pages that you had subscribed to. The web 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:32.640 pages would syndicate their content to these feeders, depending on 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.040 whether or not you had added the RSS feed to 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:40.200 that feeder. This idea didn't take off immediately, but when 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:42.880 The New York Times added an RSS feed in the 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.680 early to mid two thousands, I've seen some accounts say 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:47.640 two thousand and two and others push it to two 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:51.000 thousand and four. Anyway around that time that became a 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.280 kind of tipping point for RSS technology. There were a 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:57.080 lot of different feed readers that came out as a 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:00.800 result of this, including some from really big web companies 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:04.840 like Google. Google launched Google Reader in two thousand and five. 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.880 So as a user, you could pop onto a web 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:11.400 page that you liked. We're going to talk about how 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:13.400 stuff Works in this episode, so I'll say, because that's 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:15.760 where I started. You know, that's why tech stuff has 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.600 stuff in the name. How stuff Works had an RSS 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:22.320 feed still does technically, but we'll get there. So you 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:23.960 would go to how Stuff Works and on the main 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:26.360 splash page would see a little RSS icon and you 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:30.160 could end up using that to subscribe to the page. 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:35.439 Often that would involve copying a URL shortcut from that 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.920 and then going to your aggregator of choice, whether it 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.720 was a desktop app or a web based one, and 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:46.880 then using the copied URL to subscribe to that particular 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:50.040 web page, and then the next time you refresh your reader, 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.120 the web page material would appear there, and from that 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:56.640 point forward you could just go to your reader to 0:08:56.679 --> 0:09:00.800 see what stuff, if any, had been updated across all 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.120 the different sites that you had subscribed to. So as 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:08.600 long as a web administrator had incorporated an RSS feed 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.040 and made it accessible so that you knew that it 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.440 was there, you could subscribe to it, and that meant 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:18.120 that you had a centralized location you could go to 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:21.400 to quickly scan for updates to sites that you enjoyed, 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.560 without having to go to each individual site to look 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:28.800 for stuff that was new. The aggregator really cut down 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:31.679 on that frustration, right. It removed the need to visit 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.480 every page individually, So for stuff like news, it meant 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:39.560 that users could go to their single source, their reader, 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.240 and get a quick rundown of what's going on across 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:46.000 multiple publications. You could subscribe to all of them, and 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.280 it would be kind of like browsing a news stand 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:51.200 and looking at all the headlines before deciding which, if any, 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.040 paper or magazine you were going to really dive into. 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:58.600 The feed readers typically had some other features that made 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.200 them useful. For example, they could keep track of which 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:04.360 items you had clicked through to read, and the reader 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:06.920 would then know you'd already seen that update, so it 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:10.040 wouldn't show you that upon subsequent visits, So it's kind 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.600 of like a mark as red feature. That way, you 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:15.840 know you wouldn't pop onto your reader and just see 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:17.720 a bunch of stuff that you had already looked at. 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.080 You could also, however, with most readers anyway, you could 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:24.000 flag a piece of content that you really liked and 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:27.959 essentially book market so that it wouldn't disappear from the reader. 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:30.120 On subsequent visits, you would still be able to get 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:32.720 to it, so it was kind of like saving an article. 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.520 So it acted like kind of like a bookmark. But 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:39.240 if you hop around the web now, you might notice 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:43.640 that that little RSS icon doesn't show up that frequently. 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.160 When we come back, I'll talk a bit about why 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.520 that is and what has happened as a result, But 0:10:50.600 --> 0:11:03.360 first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsors. Okay, 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:08.080 so I mentioned already my old stomping grounds of HowStuffWorks 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.720 dot com. On that website, we used to have an 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.840 RSS icon right there on the landing page when you 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.520 got there. If you looked in the top of the page, 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.079 you would see a little RSS icon that you could 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:23.760 use to subscribe to How Stuff Works and see updates 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:26.440 as they were posted. I actually had to use the 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.920 wayback machine to make sure I wasn't imagining this that 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:32.720 I was remembering it incorrectly. You have to remember I 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:35.880 haven't worked for how stuff Works for several years. I've 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:39.840 had the same job, kind of like I've been working 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:42.960 at the same position since two thousand and seven, but 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.360 I've had different companies around me. It's a wild thing. Anyway, 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:48.120 I haven't been with How Stuffworks for a while, and 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:51.120 if you go to how stuffworks dot com today, you 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:55.640 will not see that RSS icon on the landing page. Now, 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:57.520 I want to make it clear, How stuff Works does 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:00.760 still have RSS feeds. In fact, it has a few 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:04.679 different RSS feeds, but you have to go to the 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:08.360 actual page that hosts those feeds to be able to 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:10.560 subscribe to them. I had to go through Google to 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:14.040 find it. Actually. Also side note, I need to say 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:16.520 something about my former employer. I think I mentioned this 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.480 maybe in a news episode or something not too long ago, 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:23.360 but from what I understand, recently, How Stuffworks essentially laid 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:28.120 off the entire editorial staff after pivoting to using AI 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:32.480 generated content instead of employing actual writers to write the articles. 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:35.120 So if you go to some of the articles on 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.240 HowStuffWorks dot com right now, which, by the way, when 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:43.960 I last checked, didn't have any articles posted since late June. Anyway, 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:47.440 articles now have a notification that explains an editor fact 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.839 checks the articles, but that those articles have some or 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:57.160 perhaps all, content generated courtesy of AI. I heard that 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.320 the editorial staff had been pushing back on this, moved 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:04.280 toward AI, and that subsequently they were let go. I 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:06.840 should stress this is what I have heard, and I 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:08.959 could be wrong because I haven't actually heard it from 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.280 anyone who was working at house Stuff Works at the time. 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:14.520 I have lost touch with the folks who were working 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.400 at house Stuff Works, so I haven't heard it from 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:22.000 a direct source. So it does make me very sad. 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:24.439 And like I said, tech stuff wouldn't be called tech 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:26.560 stuff if it weren't for hou Stuff Works, so I 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:29.120 definitely wouldn't have the job I have now if the 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:31.520 robots had been writing articles back in two thousand and 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:34.640 seven when I first joined that company. Anyway, let's get 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.960 back to RSS. As I mentioned, RSS technology made it 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:41.640 possible for creators to make audio podcasts that users could 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:46.320 subscribe to, so a podcatcher essentially acts like an RSS reader. 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:49.560 It notifies the user when there's a new episode, which 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:52.160 is just an update to the RSS feed, and the 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:55.920 user can then listen to that episode. But apart from 0:13:55.960 --> 0:14:00.480 podcasts and a few other uses, why has RSS largely 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:03.040 disappeared from the web. Well, in many ways, you can 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.920 map the decline of RSS with the rise of social networks. 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:11.960 People migrated away from using stuff like aggregators. Google shut 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:15.680 down Google Reader in twenty thirteen, which is a very 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:18.800 Google thing to do. That is to introduce a tool, 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:22.800 gradually remove direction and support for that tool, and then 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.160 ultimately shut the tool down. Now, you might scavenge the 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.160 tool for parts that you might use in later stuff, 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:32.400 or maybe the whole thing just fades away over time. 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:36.520 But generally speaking, people began to rely more on platforms 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:40.040 like Facebook or Twitter to find stuff they wanted to read, 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:43.480 or they would go to platforms like Reddit to do that. 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:48.760 Before that, dig web developers had fewer reasons to incorporate 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.720 an RSS feed at all, and I would argue another 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:53.480 big reason for this is that a lot of web 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:57.440 based sites and services began to pivot toward building out 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:01.080 mobile apps once the consumer smartphone became a dominant way 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.480 that folks were accessing the web and web services. Why 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:06.960 would you spend all your time building out web pages 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.160 if the average person is accessing content on a phone 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.160 where web pages aren't necessarily easy to read or navigate, 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:18.240 why not develop an app that could push notifications directly 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.440 to the owner when there's an update. So a lot 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:25.480 of stuff got moved over to the app ecosystem rather 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:29.040 than to RSS. Now that's not to say that no 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:33.200 one uses RSS today. It's not a dead technology. There 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.600 are people who liken it to dead languages like Latin, 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:39.600 and by that they mean that, sure, there are still 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.000 people who are using RSS, just like there are still 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:46.680 people who understand Latin. But you're not seeing active development 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.120 in RSS, especially not like we did back in the 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.720 early two thousands, and certainly there's not a groundswell of 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:57.800 support to make RSS a ubiquitous technology anymore. It's still 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.960 power stuff like podcatchers, and there's sites where you can 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:04.760 actually find the RSS feeds, like how stuff Works. And 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.520 there are even a couple of RSS readers that are 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:10.120 still out there, but most of them are gone at 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:12.880 this point. When I was researching this episode, I found 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:15.480 an article that had a list of readers, so out 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.280 of curiosity, I tried to track them down. I followed 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.720 different URLs and stuff. A lot of URLs just led 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:24.800 to blank pages, you know, saying like this domain is 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:29.120 ready to be to be purchased. So that clearly shows 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.880 that the business that that created that reader has long 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:35.480 since gone out of business. Out of all the ones 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:39.320 I checked, I only found two that are still around, 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:41.200 and out of those two, only one of them is 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:44.880 still an RSS aggregator. The other one has become more 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:48.880 of a portal website that curates content for you, but 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.160 it doesn't give you the control of, you know, choosing 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:56.640 which RSS feeds to subscribe to. So in other words, 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:59.520 they're doing all the choosing and you just, you know, 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:03.600 you get whatever they've served up. We've also seen web 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:06.520 browsers drop support for RSS. There was a time when 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.560 you could use RSS feeds to create stuff like bookmarks 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.240 that would flag when a site updated, but that kind 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:16.480 of functionality isn't really a thing in most web browsers anymore. Also, 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:19.080 the web has become a lot more centralized over time, 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:23.320 with fewer companies controlling more of the web landscape. So 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:25.679 back in the early days of the web, there was 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:27.840 this kind of dream that the web was going to 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:34.040 be this democratized, decentralized thing where you had all these 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:38.680 different little pockets that were interesting and independent and could 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:41.919 evolve on their own And it's almost like visiting different 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:45.080 neighborhoods in a city, with each neighborhood having kind of 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:49.840 its own personality. But as it unfolded, what really happened 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:53.880 was that we had companies get bigger and bigger and 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:57.359 consolidate more and more of the web. And these days 0:17:57.400 --> 0:17:59.720 you can look and say like, well, there's some of 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:05.119 the massive companies that essentially dominate the web. You know, 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:09.480 your Googles, your Amazons, your your you know, facebooks, that 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.639 kind of stuff or meta I should say, not Facebook, 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.800 but you get the idea. And it's a very different 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:19.560 view of what the web is based compared to what 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:23.919 we first thought about back in the nineties. Really, and 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:28.040 so RSS has arguably lost a lot of its relevance 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:30.840 as a result of that, which is a shame because 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:36.639 I actually really liked having aggregators. I love that. I 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:41.199 love being able to go to specific sites where I 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.840 could do, you know, subscribe there, and be able to 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:47.760 keep up with what was going on. It's really useful 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:49.359 when you're doing stuff like just trying to keep an 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:51.960 eye on things like tech news. Now that's not to 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:55.760 say that there aren't still some examples out there. There are. 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.639 I mean I still use feed lee for example, to 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:03.520 be able to look quick at recent articles across different 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:09.440 uh you know, uh spectrums of content. Or I go 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:11.879 to Reddit, where it's all you know, user generated and 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:16.000 user submitted stuff that you know, the articles that they 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:20.919 have discovered wherever they happen to roam. But it's not. 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:23.640 It's not as prevalent as it could have been, which 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.320 is sort of a shame. Anyway, I thought it would 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:28.919 be interesting to look back on OURSS and kind of 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:34.160 look at what caused it to not become a more 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:38.800 you know, common technology today. I hope you found this interesting. 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:42.920 I hope you are all well, and I will talk 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:53.160 to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeart 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:58.240 Radio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:01.560 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you you listen to your favorite shows.