Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech
Speaker 1: are you? And from the beginning of this episode, I'm
Speaker 1: going to get the cringe out of the way at
Speaker 1: the beginning and adopt an old, tiny voice just for
Speaker 1: the purposes of the intro. So, there are lots of
Speaker 1: different ways to access content on the web, and I
Speaker 1: know that's a lame and obvious thing to say, but
Speaker 1: I kind of start somewhere, and in ye olden days
Speaker 1: of the web, you used a browser on a desktop
Speaker 1: computer to navigate to a specific website. And in those
Speaker 1: old days, web pages were often unchanging. They were static.
Speaker 1: It was like open it up a book and reading
Speaker 1: the specific passage. You just put that book right back
Speaker 1: on the shelf and forget about it for years and
Speaker 1: come back to it. Open up that book, go to
Speaker 1: that bookmark that passage won't have changed because it's a
Speaker 1: book and books don't do that. Gradually, the web matured,
Speaker 1: New tools made it possible update web pages without having
Speaker 1: to reinvent the wheel each time. This meant there'd be
Speaker 1: a reason to return to a web page again and again. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna drive that now. But returning the web pages
Speaker 1: also created frustration. You might go to the trouble of
Speaker 1: typing in a web page as URL or following a
Speaker 1: bookmark if you were a civilized person, and you would
Speaker 1: discover that maybe the page hadn't been updated since the
Speaker 1: last time you were on, and you wasted all that
Speaker 1: time and effort going to a web page that hasn't
Speaker 1: changed since the last time you were there. Think of
Speaker 1: all the amazing things you could have done if you
Speaker 1: had already known there wasn't anything new there. Maybe you
Speaker 1: could have, I don't know, created a new hobby or something. Conversely,
Speaker 1: you might go to a web page after not having
Speaker 1: visited it for several weeks, and then you see that
Speaker 1: while you were gone, the web administrator held a really
Speaker 1: cool contest, and you totally would have won that contest,
Speaker 1: except it's already over now and you didn't know that
Speaker 1: there had been an update, and so you missed your chance. Curses. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: a new technology emerged in the late nineties that would
Speaker 1: make it easier to stay current with web page updates.
Speaker 1: On the user side of things. It also would make
Speaker 1: it possible to create a subscription model for content like podcasts.
Speaker 1: So this came out of the company Netscape. Originally, Netscape
Speaker 1: was the Mosaic Communications Corporation, and Netscape had introduced an
Speaker 1: early and incredibly popular web browser, the Netscape Navigator, and
Speaker 1: in the early to mid nineties, Netscape Navigator was the
Speaker 1: dominant web browser. However, by the late nineties, Netscape was
Speaker 1: taking a beating from Microsoft's Internet Explorer. The story behind
Speaker 1: that gets into the Great Browser Wars of the late nineties,
Speaker 1: but that's really a matter for a different episode. Let's
Speaker 1: just say by the late nineties, Netscape Navigator was no
Speaker 1: longer the dominant web browser on the market. But around
Speaker 1: this time Netscape started to develop this new technology, and
Speaker 1: it also got a new corporate overlord. AOL announced in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight that it would acquire Netscape, which it
Speaker 1: did in the spring of nineteen ninety nine. Around that
Speaker 1: time is also when Netscape introduced its technology it had
Speaker 1: been developing, which was called RSS. So what does RSS
Speaker 1: stand for, Well, it could stand for really simple syndication,
Speaker 1: or it stands for rich Site Summary, or with the
Speaker 1: original announcement, it actually stood for RDF Site Summary. RDF
Speaker 1: in turn stands for Resource Description Framework. So really it
Speaker 1: ends up depending upon whom you ask. So originally I
Speaker 1: guess you could say it was RDF site summary, but
Speaker 1: over time this changed. Whatever you say RSS stands for
Speaker 1: the technology's ultimate use would become the same. It ultimately
Speaker 1: made it easier for users to stay current with web
Speaker 1: page updates. That wasn't necessarily the intention when it was
Speaker 1: first being developed, but that's how it ended up being used.
Speaker 1: So a website that included an RSS feed was one
Speaker 1: where users could subscribe to that page and the page
Speaker 1: would syndicate updates to wherever the user had installed that subscription.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that in a little bit. Now. I'm
Speaker 1: skipping over a lot of early RSS stuff. There were
Speaker 1: lots of other elements at play in those early days,
Speaker 1: including a similar web syndication technology called scripting News, and
Speaker 1: some elements of scripting News would actually merge into the
Speaker 1: developing RSS technology as it would evolve from version to version.
Speaker 1: Then there became a disagreement within the RSS developer community
Speaker 1: about how to evolve the technology. You had one side
Speaker 1: that wanted to keep changes relatively small, primarily to adhere
Speaker 1: to this philosophy of maintaining a simple technology, the fear
Speaker 1: being if it gets too complicated, people won't use it.
Speaker 1: You had others in the community who wanted to build
Speaker 1: in a lot more functionality with RSS, but that would
Speaker 1: necessitate a more complex approach, and that could become a
Speaker 1: barrier for adoption. Interesting side note, one of the folks
Speaker 1: pushing for the more functionality side was a fourteen year
Speaker 1: old named Aaron Swartz, who would later co found Reddit. Tragically,
Speaker 1: Swarts would take his own life in twenty thirteen while
Speaker 1: the focus of aggressive prosecution from MIT and Massachusetts authorities,
Speaker 1: but that's a story for another day. The disagree between
Speaker 1: these two camps of developers led to a fork in
Speaker 1: RSS development. So on one side you had the more
Speaker 1: methodical and arguably conservative evolution of the technology. On the
Speaker 1: other you had the more extensive changes and additions, which
Speaker 1: would become RSS one point zero. And in two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, RSS would fork a second time, meaning now
Speaker 1: you had three competing versions, the third of which, however,
Speaker 1: would become known as ATOM, so it wasn't another confusing
Speaker 1: RSS designation. Eventually, the more conservative version of RSS would
Speaker 1: become the most widely adopted, and it would become known
Speaker 1: as RSS two point zero. So yeah, you had three
Speaker 1: different versions of RSS out there, although the two point
Speaker 1: zero one would become arguably the most ubiquitous. Now Over
Speaker 1: on the user side, the general public accessing the web
Speaker 1: largely remained unaware of RSS at all, no matter which
Speaker 1: fork you talked about. It just wasn't a technology that
Speaker 1: most people had heard about. But what would emerge over
Speaker 1: time is that the user would end up relying upon
Speaker 1: an aggregator called a feed reader. And this could be
Speaker 1: a desktop based application, so an actual program you would
Speaker 1: open up, kind of similar to a web browser, or
Speaker 1: it might be entirely web based, a website that you would
Speaker 1: go to in order to look for updates to all
Speaker 1: the web pages that you had subscribed to. The web
Speaker 1: pages would syndicate their content to these feeders, depending on
Speaker 1: whether or not you had added the RSS feed to
Speaker 1: that feeder. This idea didn't take off immediately, but when
Speaker 1: The New York Times added an RSS feed in the
Speaker 1: early to mid two thousands, I've seen some accounts say
Speaker 1: two thousand and two and others push it to two
Speaker 1: thousand and four. Anyway around that time that became a
Speaker 1: kind of tipping point for RSS technology. There were a
Speaker 1: lot of different feed readers that came out as a
Speaker 1: result of this, including some from really big web companies
Speaker 1: like Google. Google launched Google Reader in two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: So as a user, you could pop onto a web
Speaker 1: page that you liked. We're going to talk about how
Speaker 1: stuff Works in this episode, so I'll say, because that's
Speaker 1: where I started. You know, that's why tech stuff has
Speaker 1: stuff in the name. How stuff Works had an RSS
Speaker 1: feed still does technically, but we'll get there. So you
Speaker 1: would go to how Stuff Works and on the main
Speaker 1: splash page would see a little RSS icon and you
Speaker 1: could end up using that to subscribe to the page.
Speaker 1: Often that would involve copying a URL shortcut from that
Speaker 1: and then going to your aggregator of choice, whether it
Speaker 1: was a desktop app or a web based one, and
Speaker 1: then using the copied URL to subscribe to that particular
Speaker 1: web page, and then the next time you refresh your reader,
Speaker 1: the web page material would appear there, and from that
Speaker 1: point forward you could just go to your reader to
Speaker 1: see what stuff, if any, had been updated across all
Speaker 1: the different sites that you had subscribed to. So as
Speaker 1: long as a web administrator had incorporated an RSS feed
Speaker 1: and made it accessible so that you knew that it
Speaker 1: was there, you could subscribe to it, and that meant
Speaker 1: that you had a centralized location you could go to
Speaker 1: to quickly scan for updates to sites that you enjoyed,
Speaker 1: without having to go to each individual site to look
Speaker 1: for stuff that was new. The aggregator really cut down
Speaker 1: on that frustration, right. It removed the need to visit
Speaker 1: every page individually, So for stuff like news, it meant
Speaker 1: that users could go to their single source, their reader,
Speaker 1: and get a quick rundown of what's going on across
Speaker 1: multiple publications. You could subscribe to all of them, and
Speaker 1: it would be kind of like browsing a news stand
Speaker 1: and looking at all the headlines before deciding which, if any,
Speaker 1: paper or magazine you were going to really dive into.
Speaker 1: The feed readers typically had some other features that made
Speaker 1: them useful. For example, they could keep track of which
Speaker 1: items you had clicked through to read, and the reader
Speaker 1: would then know you'd already seen that update, so it
Speaker 1: wouldn't show you that upon subsequent visits, So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a mark as red feature. That way, you
Speaker 1: know you wouldn't pop onto your reader and just see
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff that you had already looked at.
Speaker 1: You could also, however, with most readers anyway, you could
Speaker 1: flag a piece of content that you really liked and
Speaker 1: essentially book market so that it wouldn't disappear from the reader.
Speaker 1: On subsequent visits, you would still be able to get
Speaker 1: to it, so it was kind of like saving an article.
Speaker 1: So it acted like kind of like a bookmark. But
Speaker 1: if you hop around the web now, you might notice
Speaker 1: that that little RSS icon doesn't show up that frequently.
Speaker 1: When we come back, I'll talk a bit about why
Speaker 1: that is and what has happened as a result, But
Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsors. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I mentioned already my old stomping grounds of HowStuffWorks
Speaker 1: dot com. On that website, we used to have an
Speaker 1: RSS icon right there on the landing page when you
Speaker 1: got there. If you looked in the top of the page,
Speaker 1: you would see a little RSS icon that you could
Speaker 1: use to subscribe to How Stuff Works and see updates
Speaker 1: as they were posted. I actually had to use the
Speaker 1: wayback machine to make sure I wasn't imagining this that
Speaker 1: I was remembering it incorrectly. You have to remember I
Speaker 1: haven't worked for how stuff Works for several years. I've
Speaker 1: had the same job, kind of like I've been working
Speaker 1: at the same position since two thousand and seven, but
Speaker 1: I've had different companies around me. It's a wild thing. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I haven't been with How Stuffworks for a while, and
Speaker 1: if you go to how stuffworks dot com today, you
Speaker 1: will not see that RSS icon on the landing page. Now,
Speaker 1: I want to make it clear, How stuff Works does
Speaker 1: still have RSS feeds. In fact, it has a few
Speaker 1: different RSS feeds, but you have to go to the
Speaker 1: actual page that hosts those feeds to be able to
Speaker 1: subscribe to them. I had to go through Google to
Speaker 1: find it. Actually. Also side note, I need to say
Speaker 1: something about my former employer. I think I mentioned this
Speaker 1: maybe in a news episode or something not too long ago,
Speaker 1: but from what I understand, recently, How Stuffworks essentially laid
Speaker 1: off the entire editorial staff after pivoting to using AI
Speaker 1: generated content instead of employing actual writers to write the articles.
Speaker 1: So if you go to some of the articles on
Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot com right now, which, by the way, when
Speaker 1: I last checked, didn't have any articles posted since late June. Anyway,
Speaker 1: articles now have a notification that explains an editor fact
Speaker 1: checks the articles, but that those articles have some or
Speaker 1: perhaps all, content generated courtesy of AI. I heard that
Speaker 1: the editorial staff had been pushing back on this, moved
Speaker 1: toward AI, and that subsequently they were let go. I
Speaker 1: should stress this is what I have heard, and I
Speaker 1: could be wrong because I haven't actually heard it from
Speaker 1: anyone who was working at house Stuff Works at the time.
Speaker 1: I have lost touch with the folks who were working
Speaker 1: at house Stuff Works, so I haven't heard it from
Speaker 1: a direct source. So it does make me very sad.
Speaker 1: And like I said, tech stuff wouldn't be called tech
Speaker 1: stuff if it weren't for hou Stuff Works, so I
Speaker 1: definitely wouldn't have the job I have now if the
Speaker 1: robots had been writing articles back in two thousand and
Speaker 1: seven when I first joined that company. Anyway, let's get
Speaker 1: back to RSS. As I mentioned, RSS technology made it
Speaker 1: possible for creators to make audio podcasts that users could
Speaker 1: subscribe to, so a podcatcher essentially acts like an RSS reader.
Speaker 1: It notifies the user when there's a new episode, which
Speaker 1: is just an update to the RSS feed, and the
Speaker 1: user can then listen to that episode. But apart from
Speaker 1: podcasts and a few other uses, why has RSS largely
Speaker 1: disappeared from the web. Well, in many ways, you can
Speaker 1: map the decline of RSS with the rise of social networks.
Speaker 1: People migrated away from using stuff like aggregators. Google shut
Speaker 1: down Google Reader in twenty thirteen, which is a very
Speaker 1: Google thing to do. That is to introduce a tool,
Speaker 1: gradually remove direction and support for that tool, and then
Speaker 1: ultimately shut the tool down. Now, you might scavenge the
Speaker 1: tool for parts that you might use in later stuff,
Speaker 1: or maybe the whole thing just fades away over time.
Speaker 1: But generally speaking, people began to rely more on platforms
Speaker 1: like Facebook or Twitter to find stuff they wanted to read,
Speaker 1: or they would go to platforms like Reddit to do that.
Speaker 1: Before that, dig web developers had fewer reasons to incorporate
Speaker 1: an RSS feed at all, and I would argue another
Speaker 1: big reason for this is that a lot of web
Speaker 1: based sites and services began to pivot toward building out
Speaker 1: mobile apps once the consumer smartphone became a dominant way
Speaker 1: that folks were accessing the web and web services. Why
Speaker 1: would you spend all your time building out web pages
Speaker 1: if the average person is accessing content on a phone
Speaker 1: where web pages aren't necessarily easy to read or navigate,
Speaker 1: why not develop an app that could push notifications directly
Speaker 1: to the owner when there's an update. So a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff got moved over to the app ecosystem rather
Speaker 1: than to RSS. Now that's not to say that no
Speaker 1: one uses RSS today. It's not a dead technology. There
Speaker 1: are people who liken it to dead languages like Latin,
Speaker 1: and by that they mean that, sure, there are still
Speaker 1: people who are using RSS, just like there are still
Speaker 1: people who understand Latin. But you're not seeing active development
Speaker 1: in RSS, especially not like we did back in the
Speaker 1: early two thousands, and certainly there's not a groundswell of
Speaker 1: support to make RSS a ubiquitous technology anymore. It's still
Speaker 1: power stuff like podcatchers, and there's sites where you can
Speaker 1: actually find the RSS feeds, like how stuff Works. And
Speaker 1: there are even a couple of RSS readers that are
Speaker 1: still out there, but most of them are gone at
Speaker 1: this point. When I was researching this episode, I found
Speaker 1: an article that had a list of readers, so out
Speaker 1: of curiosity, I tried to track them down. I followed
Speaker 1: different URLs and stuff. A lot of URLs just led
Speaker 1: to blank pages, you know, saying like this domain is
Speaker 1: ready to be to be purchased. So that clearly shows
Speaker 1: that the business that that created that reader has long
Speaker 1: since gone out of business. Out of all the ones
Speaker 1: I checked, I only found two that are still around,
Speaker 1: and out of those two, only one of them is
Speaker 1: still an RSS aggregator. The other one has become more
Speaker 1: of a portal website that curates content for you, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't give you the control of, you know, choosing
Speaker 1: which RSS feeds to subscribe to. So in other words,
Speaker 1: they're doing all the choosing and you just, you know,
Speaker 1: you get whatever they've served up. We've also seen web
Speaker 1: browsers drop support for RSS. There was a time when
Speaker 1: you could use RSS feeds to create stuff like bookmarks
Speaker 1: that would flag when a site updated, but that kind
Speaker 1: of functionality isn't really a thing in most web browsers anymore. Also,
Speaker 1: the web has become a lot more centralized over time,
Speaker 1: with fewer companies controlling more of the web landscape. So
Speaker 1: back in the early days of the web, there was
Speaker 1: this kind of dream that the web was going to
Speaker 1: be this democratized, decentralized thing where you had all these
Speaker 1: different little pockets that were interesting and independent and could
Speaker 1: evolve on their own And it's almost like visiting different
Speaker 1: neighborhoods in a city, with each neighborhood having kind of
Speaker 1: its own personality. But as it unfolded, what really happened
Speaker 1: was that we had companies get bigger and bigger and
Speaker 1: consolidate more and more of the web. And these days
Speaker 1: you can look and say like, well, there's some of
Speaker 1: the massive companies that essentially dominate the web. You know,
Speaker 1: your Googles, your Amazons, your your you know, facebooks, that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff or meta I should say, not Facebook,
Speaker 1: but you get the idea. And it's a very different
Speaker 1: view of what the web is based compared to what
Speaker 1: we first thought about back in the nineties. Really, and
Speaker 1: so RSS has arguably lost a lot of its relevance
Speaker 1: as a result of that, which is a shame because
Speaker 1: I actually really liked having aggregators. I love that. I
Speaker 1: love being able to go to specific sites where I
Speaker 1: could do, you know, subscribe there, and be able to
Speaker 1: keep up with what was going on. It's really useful
Speaker 1: when you're doing stuff like just trying to keep an
Speaker 1: eye on things like tech news. Now that's not to
Speaker 1: say that there aren't still some examples out there. There are.
Speaker 1: I mean I still use feed lee for example, to
Speaker 1: be able to look quick at recent articles across different
Speaker 1: uh you know, uh spectrums of content. Or I go
Speaker 1: to Reddit, where it's all you know, user generated and
Speaker 1: user submitted stuff that you know, the articles that they
Speaker 1: have discovered wherever they happen to roam. But it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not as prevalent as it could have been, which
Speaker 1: is sort of a shame. Anyway, I thought it would
Speaker 1: be interesting to look back on OURSS and kind of
Speaker 1: look at what caused it to not become a more
Speaker 1: you know, common technology today. I hope you found this interesting.
Speaker 1: I hope you are all well, and I will talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeart
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