What’s wrong with RSS

2 Comments

  1. Matt

    After trying earnestly to use the RSS feed feature in Outlook on my brand new work PC for almost a month, I had to come back, look this post up, and comment.

    The problem is there\’s no consistency. If I want to see images, or the full article without having to scroll left and right, I need to do extra things – clicks and opening a browser. Sometimes I can read the full article, sometimes I cannot. I cannot get the archiving functions to work consistently.

    So what I\’ve learned is that while I would probably really, truly like a good RSS solution, I don\’t even know where to begin. Maybe it\’s that Microsoft missed the mark on the user experience (but with a track record like theirs, what are the chances?).

    I\’m hesitant to try a browser-based RSS solution, because I\’d rather just browse the website.

  2. Authors have the option on how much of their article is included in a feed, so you\’re right, there is no consistency in that respect. Personally, I prefer if the author includes the entire article, images, videos, etc. included. That way I can stay in my feed reader (I use Netnewswire) and not have to open a browser.

    I\’m not aware of any high quality Windows readers, not because there aren\’t any, but because I don\’t use a pc much. I didn\’t even realize that Outlook was trying to fill that space.

    You should give Google Reader a try. You mentioned that you\’d prefer to just browse the site itself, which is fine, unless you\’ve got 100+ sites you\’d like to stay on top of… Google Reader would provide you with one place to go to view your feeds. That\’s the goal, regardless of whether it\’s a browser or a stand alone app.

    Good luck.

    Also, you should get yerself a Gravatar.

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