As an elder millennial who still mourns the death of Google Reader (13 years ago this month, sigh) and uses the Feedly daily, I was intrigued by TechCrunch’s post: “A new app, HyperTexting, turns the open web into a scrollable social media-like feed.”
HyperTexting, launched on iOS June 29, describes itself like this:
Allow us to let you in on a little secret. Facebook did not invent the news feed in 2006. The original technologies behind modern internet feeds were invented in the 1990’s. Those same technologies have been quietly growing in popularity ever since. Today hundreds of millions of websites offer feeds, as often indicated by the subtle icon. In fact, most websites offer feeds using the exact same technology that powers podcasts — you follow or subscribe using a compatible app and get new content as soon as it is posted. A New York Times feed contains headlines and links to articles on The New York Times. A podcast feed contains “show notes” and links to MP3 audio files.
“Wherever you get your [feeds]” is a radical statement because it describes an internet that is not controlled by a handful of big tech companies. It’s an internet where creators “have ownership over their work and their relationship with their audience”, and consumers have choices. The world wide web is so much bigger than the handful of apps websites that make up social media.
Our first goal with HyperTexting is to make finding & following website feeds as easy as podcasting. We want to take back the timeline. We believe the “for you” page should actually work for you, not the platform.
This is, of course, RSS — but you won’t find HyperTexting’s parent company using that word anywhere. TechCrunch interviewed the app’s founder, Caleb Hailey, who says the problem that “bothered me for so long about RSS” is “why don’t more people care about this?” In his view, it’s time to retire the terminology entirely.
“In order for RSS to succeed reach escape velocity, I think we need to stop saying ‘RSS,'” Hailey wrote on his own site. “That’s why, if you look closely, you’ll see that I’ve gone out of my way to avoid using terms like ‘RSS’, ‘Atom’, ‘JSON Feed’ or ‘OPML’ in the HyperTexting app and website.”
Hailey isn’t the only one attempting to introduce the technology formerly known as RSS to a younger generation. (Nieman Lab predictors have been saying this was coming for a few years now.) The Electronic Frontier Foundation published a guide last month to “a tool that’s been around for decades that can help wrangle many of your feeds into something manageable.”
And earlier this year, the engineer and developer Terry Godier launched Current as a “guilt-free” RSS reader that doesn’t display how many unread posts you have.
“Every RSS reader I tried made me feel bad. Not because the apps were ugly or broken (most were quite good) but because they all seemed to agree on something I didn’t. That reading the internet was a task,” Godier wrote. That articles were items to be processed. That falling behind was a failure state. I didn’t have a name for this yet. I just knew I wanted a reader that didn’t make me feel like I owed it something.”
By the way, Nieman Lab’s RSS feed is here.
