Why RSS feeds aren't necessarily good...

I've been using RSS feeds to keep in touch with the world for a long time now - as i'm supposing many do.

We rely on our RSS Clients/Feed Readers etc, to keep us informed. Having our information gathered into a central place makes it easy to locate it.

Now, i should mention that i love RSS..i really do..i don't think i could calculate (easily that is) the amount of time it generally saves me so i don't have to visit 100s of sites - you just open up your favorite feed reader and voila, it's updated - you get this world of information available to you straight away.

But...and yes, there's a "but" in here (single "t", not two)..I do get a little frustrated at times with how most of them behave.

Say, you read a really good article and you decide you'd comment on it because the author either asks for feedback or you feel you have something to contribute. So you quickly write up your comment and post it - sometimes you're still doing it from within your feed reader, sometimes you're taken to the site itself.

While you've been commenting, pouring your heart out or making (what you think anyways) a very valid comment - there's been an update to the blog entry/article. Now, this edit wasn't made at the exact same time you were commenting - it could literally have been made hours ago - but, the content of the article in your feed reader hasn't been updated. As a matter of fact, in most cases, it wont be updated.

So, suddenly your "reliable" source of information is outdated, inaccurate and the comment you've made is totally out of focus becaues it suddenly doesn't reflect the article itself.

In some other cases, you'll find that even though you can view the xml from the feed and see there's definitely new posts in there - your feed reader just refused to acknowledge that there is indeed new content.

I've noticed this happen very frequently with Scott Guthrie's blog (one of my main sources of news)..

So, why is it that feed readers can turn something, so excellent, as an RSS feed, into a news nightmare? is it a flaw in the way RSS is handled by the client/service? or, is it simply something we "assume" is how a piece of software is meant to work?

I wont mention names, but i've been using a ton of different feed readers over the years, and they seemingly all behave like this. Once you've gotten your feed item down that's it. it'll never get updated with the changes that's been made to the article/blog entry.

So the gist is - yes, RSS is a good way to distribute information..it's meant to facilitate information being shared, but if you suddenly have to start re-visiting these sources all the time you end up wasting time, rather than gaining time.

Is the flaw in the way RSS is handled or is it a flaw in the readers themselves?

Published Fri, Feb 13 2009 6:38 by Brian Madsen
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Comments

# re: Why RSS feeds aren't necessarily good...

Thursday, February 12, 2009 7:42 PM by Colin Scott

This reflects the asynchronous nature of the internet and indeed reality at large. Sooner or later you need to stop acquiring new information and actually make a decision. This may mean excluding the absolute latest piece of information but this is a risk we have to take. The alternative is paralysis.

There may be partial technical solutions that involve more frequent updates but these have costs and won't eliminate the issue. Keeping multiple clients constantly updated represents an overhead in communications and processing resources. There's also the inevitable race conditions where you submit your comment and the update comes in a second too late for you to respond to it.

It is for this reason you see systems based on messaging having an inbuilt understanding of the version of data and a tolerance for not having the latest version. It's inevitable anyway so it's better that the system know this than pretend it can't happen.

Or you could just comment on blogs like this one with few commenters and a marauding wife who defends you against accusations of being overweight... :)

# re: Why RSS feeds aren't necessarily good...

Thursday, February 12, 2009 8:52 PM by Brian Madsen

why on earth would i ever stop aquiring new information...each day i learn something, i am a bit richer :)

i intend fully to become a millionaire by those standards by the time i put my clogs up.

and i disagree that it's a reflection of reality..i say it's a reflection of people accepting status quo, rather than look for options that will better their current situation :p

why is it inevitable that you're stuck with information that's not the latest. Why can't an RSS reader/Feed reader update an item IF there's changes to that item? Why can't RSS feeds contain a "version" attribute/element which would enable th feed reader to ascertain that it needs to update it's current version?

bleh @ Colin..very well put, but inadvertedly wrong on so many counts :p

p.s. my wife certainly does NOT defend me from accusations of being overweight...from the way i wear down shoes i think it's apparently that there's something on the heavy side wrong with me :)

# Avoiding Paralysis: Learning to live with the reality of obsolete data

Friday, February 13, 2009 10:59 PM by AbstractCode

Avoiding Paralysis: Learning to live with the reality of obsolete data

# re: Why RSS feeds aren't necessarily good...

Friday, February 13, 2009 11:17 PM by Colin Scott

Rather than argue in the comments I've put up a couple of postings on my own blog that explain why I'm right and you're wrong.

www.abstractcode.com/.../avoiding-paralysis-learning-to-live-with-the-reality-of-obsolete.aspx

www.abstractcode.com/.../updating-data-in-an-ever-changing-world.aspx

# re: Why RSS feeds aren't necessarily good...

Friday, February 13, 2009 11:44 PM by Colin Scott

On a note unrelated to the issues of currency of data, there are other issues with RSS. One of the larger ones is that it's a pull format that requires polling. Polling has it's place but in this instance it does lead to a lot of superfluous traffic, especially where blogs are not often updated. Push may be more efficient here but would be harder to set up on existing internet infrastructure. And despite what some bloggers may think blog traffic isn't likely to justify a whole new set of services any time soon.

Anyway, you'd never get a majority of bloggers to agree to the merits of a single push system anyway... :)