Long Earlier Facebook, Twitter Together With Instagram Weaponized The Newsfeed, Nosotros Had A Applied Scientific Discipline That Permit Us Aggregate The Tidings Without Annoying, Creepy Algorithms

I blame Google.
Their conclusion to non honor a way to brand Google Reader move financially, shutting downwards for skilful July 1, 2013, was coincident alongside the hypergrowth of the ability in addition to evil of Facebook's newsfeed. Correlation ≠ causation move damned, I blame the GOOG.

From Wired:

It's Time for an RSS Revival

The modern spider web contains no shortage of horrors, from ubiquitous advertising trackers to all-consuming platforms to YouTube comments, generally. Unfortunately, there's no panacea for what ails this meshing we've built. But anyone weary of black-box algorithms controlling what yous encounter online at to the lowest degree has a respite, i that's been at that spot all along but has oft gone ignored. Tired of Twitter? Facebook fatigued? It's fourth dimension to caput dorsum to RSS.

For many of you, that way finding a replacement for Digg Reader, which went the way of the ghost this month. Or mayhap yous haven't used RSS since v years ago, when Google Reader, the dear firehose of intelligence headlines got the axe. For others, it way figuring out what the heck an RSS feed is inward the kickoff place—we'll larn to that inward only a minute. And some of yous accept already moved on to the adjacent article inward your Feedly queue.

No thing what your electrical flow disposition, though, inward this historic menstruum of algorithmic overreach there's something deeply satisfying most finding stories beyond what your loudest Twitter follows shared, or that Facebook's News Feed optimized into your life. And lots of tools that tin lav larn yous there.

Cue RSS

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (or Rich Site Summary) in addition to it was kickoff stitched into the tapestry of the opened upwardly spider web around the plow of the millennium. Its aim is straightforward: to become far slowly to rails updates to the content of a given website inward a standardized format.

In practice, in addition to for your purposes, that way it tin lav give yous a comprehensive, regularly updated await at all of the content your favorite sites release throughout the day. Think of it equally the ultimate aggregator; every morsel from every rootage yous aid about, fed guide to you. Or, to a greater extent than commonly, fed to yous through an intermediary known equally an RSS feed reader, software that helps yous wrangle all of those disparate headlines into something remotely manageable.

The departure betwixt getting intelligence from an RSS reader in addition to getting it from Facebook or Twitter or Nuzzel or Apple News is a chip similar the departure betwixt a Vegas buffet in addition to an a la carte menu. In either case, yous make upwardly one's heed what yous genuinely desire to consume. But the buffet gives yous a whole the world of options yous otherwise mightiness never accept seen.

"There are multiple approaches to connecting to news. Social felt pretty interesting at first, but when yous mix social in addition to algorithmic, yous tin lav easily come inward these dissonance bubbles, or areas where yous don't necessarily experience 100 pct inward command of the algorithm," says Edwin Khodabakchian, cofounder in addition to CEO of pop RSS reader Feedly. "A tool similar Feedly gives yous a to a greater extent than transparent in addition to controllable way to connect to the data yous need."...MUCH MORE

HT: MetaFilter where the comments tin lav move pretty interesting.