[HN Gopher] Kill the Newsletter: Convert email newsletters into ...
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Kill the Newsletter: Convert email newsletters into Atom feeds
Author : goranmoomin
Score : 74 points
Date : 2024-08-21 17:15 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kill-the-newsletter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (kill-the-newsletter.com)
| breck wrote:
| Yes! Let's make email human again.
| warden_2003 wrote:
| haha
| petercooper wrote:
| It's a great idea, though take a look if any newsletters you want
| to subscribe to offer their own feed as it's more likely to be
| resilient in the long term (sometimes services like this get
| bumped off of lists due to inactivity or bounces). I know
| Substack has RSS for all of theirs (whatever.substack.com/feed)
| as do all of my own ones (with a /rss suffix).
| dylan604 wrote:
| all of these ideas that sound cool to a very techy type person,
| but "moms" are not going to do this. they enjoy getting these ads
| in their inbox. just because some techy type wants something does
| not mean the general masses wants the same thing.
|
| this is already way more complicated than "moms" want to do:
| generate a new email, use that email in this new form, get a feed
| reader (wtf is that mom says). while this is perfectly fine for
| power users, it just makes me smile how often we forget there are
| a far larger number of non-power users that are out there
| stvltvs wrote:
| This might have worked before Google killed Reader when
| personal blogs ruled the Internet, but nothing has come along
| to fill that void.
| monsieurgaufre wrote:
| Also, a lot of rss feeds now only offer the title of the
| post/article. I still need to visit the pages anyway to get to
| the content. With a newsletter, i receive a bit of context
| around the content as well.
| graemep wrote:
| There are feed readers that will load the pages when you
| click on the title
| monsieurgaufre wrote:
| While true, it adds even more uncertainty for non-technical
| users.
| bertman wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand what you (and others in this
| thread) are getting at.
|
| Non-technical users can simply subscribe to the
| newsletter with their email address. If they don't
| understand what this project is about, they probably
| don't need and don't want it.
|
| Users that prefer RSS over email use kill-the-newsletter
| for outlets that don't offer RSS.
| monsieurgaufre wrote:
| i was (badly) explaining why most people prefer the
| newsletter format.
|
| And from what i've read, even the technical users prefer
| it most of the time.
| elliotec wrote:
| This doesn't appear to be a product marketed to "moms." But it
| also isn't clear how it works at all for a "power user" like
| me.
| stackskipton wrote:
| Not to mention, marketing isn't going to do this. I bet email
| more push notification system vs Atom feed that is just hanging
| out waiting for attention gets more engagement.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yeah, feeds sound cool except there are too damn many of them.
|
| I have to monitor my phone, Teams, Slack, email, and some other
| bespoke notification channel my employer invented. It's too
| much, I don't want more. As much as possible I try to get stuff
| pushed into email, as once it's there I can interact with the
| message in the same way, no matter the source.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Err, the page doesn't explain why I would want to do this. What's
| the advantage of Atom, which can be read on a web page or a
| standalone client, versus email, which can be read on a web page
| or a standalone client?
|
| I know some advantages of email:
|
| * I already have an email reader that I use every day.
|
| * The newsletter was designed for email, so it'll probably look
| better.
|
| But what do I get by going with Atom?
| TehShrike wrote:
| Some blogs only make themselves accessible via email. This
| service is a way to get those blog posts in your feed reader.
| hadlock wrote:
| Well, Atom has been around possibly longer than you've been
| alive. You can use it in any Atom/RSS reader. These were the OG
| blog syndication tools, they're platform/company independent
| and provide a standard interface. Atom was huge back in the
| webcomics era. You can use an Atom/RSS feed to build your own
| google news page, effectively, and carry/sync it between
| devices. I haven't used it in forever, but 15 years ago most
| every site offered feeds for both their entire site, and main
| sections
| sethammons wrote:
| Atom was invented in 2005. I think the average user here is
| likely able to at least go to the bar and buy a drink. Email
| was invented in 1971; depending on how sloppy you want to be,
| that is the better part of a century ago.
|
| that is a point for email.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Thank you for thinking I'm not in my late 40s! I love
| RSS/Atom, I'm just wondering why I'd use this instead of
| email. I get that it's different, what I was asking was: what
| are the advantages of taking a native email newsletter and
| syndicating it through Atom instead, given that it the
| newsletter was made to be consumed via email, and everybody
| already has an email client?
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _What 's the advantage of Atom, which can be read on a web
| page or a standalone client, versus email, which can be read on
| a web page or a standalone client?_
|
| I find RSS/Atom more a-sync while e-mail tends to be more
| interrupt-driver (even with filters and folders (or
| _*hawk*spit*_ Gmail 's tags)).
|
| > _But what do I get by going with Atom?_
|
| Not having your e-mail address yet one more database?
| sanderjd wrote:
| Ha, I did a PoC of this awhile back using lambda and SES and I
| was pleasantly surprised that it was relatively easy to do and
| worked pretty nicely, but eventually I went back to just reading
| all my newsletters (and unsubscribing from most of them...) in my
| email client rather than using a feed reader, so I decided it
| might not really make sense as a product.
|
| I had the thought that maybe it would actually be neat to go the
| other direction, to be able to subscribe to feeds, but have new
| posts emailed like newsletters, but I never tried that out.
| dynm wrote:
| I like this service and use it myself. But I do find one thing
| unsettling about it: I run a blog that offers email
| subscriptions, but also provide direct RSS feeds (with prominent
| links!). For reasons I don't understand, large numbers of people
| subscribe using kill-the-newsletter. Which makes me sad, because
| then they don't get real tables, can't see post-publication
| corrections, don't get vector graphics, etc.
| ajdude wrote:
| Make a blog post about it
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| I still don't get how my substack newsletter got such a success
| but the RSS got so little love.
|
| It's less clutter. No string attached. Formatting is better.
|
| And yet.
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| I see the same thing! A little tempted to email them sometimes
| with "you know there's a real RSS feed..."
|
| I don't feel like I present the email option with any more
| prominence either. Interesting user behavior.
| manuelmoreale wrote:
| Ahah same. I literally just posted another comment here saying
| the same. I even made a PSA on my blog to let them know and
| people keep doing it.
|
| I really don't get it. If you want an RSS just use that.
|
| But i guess people are used to not have an RSS available so
| they don't even bother checking.
| kevincox wrote:
| I run a paid RSS-to-Email service and I have customers who
| subscribe to get kill-the-newsletter RSS feeds delivered to
| them via email.
|
| At some point I just have to assume that people have motives
| and not worry about it.
|
| (In the case of newsletters - feed - email it may be avoiding
| giving our your email address?)
| yegle wrote:
| Periodically send out a newsletter targeting kill-the-
| newsletter email addresses to announce the "new" RSS feed
| support.
| yunesj wrote:
| I check for an RSS feed, and if it does not exist, subscribe
| via KTN.
|
| It would be awesome if KTN provided an easy way to
| upgrade/redirect at KTN feed to an original feed, if one
| exists. I'm not sure how conveniently redirects would be
| handled by RSS clients...
| Axsuul wrote:
| It should also be mentioned that you can self-host this:
| https://github.com/leafac/kill-the-newsletter
| selykg wrote:
| I subscribe to Readwise, their Reader portion is awesome in that
| I can subscribe to RSS feeds, but it also gives you a feed email
| (and a library email, which would be like Instapaper) that you
| can subscribe to newsletters with and they go directly into your
| feed reader as an item to be read.
|
| Worth it imo, to just have it all in one place.
| rs999gti wrote:
| If you're going around the email to get the content, how will
| these marketers be able to market to you or sell your email to a
| third party?
| manuelmoreale wrote:
| You know what's funny? I have a newsletter that's also
| available as a dedicated RSS feed. People still sign up to the
| newsletter with a email-to-rss service.
|
| I even wrote a PSA on my blog to let them know they don't have
| to do it and yet they do it anyway. I guess some people just
| find it convenient.
| kristjansson wrote:
| I love the existence of both this and https://blogtrottr.com/.
| rpgbr wrote:
| Hard no. When this services burst, every subscription made
| through it will die as well. Remember Stoop[1], "a newsletter
| app" which did the same trick? It's abandoned and stoped working
| a couple months ago.
|
| [1] https://stoopinbox.com/
| Handprint4469 wrote:
| It's open source[0], you can just self-host it
|
| [0] https://github.com/leafac/kill-the-newsletter
| paradox460 wrote:
| Inoreader let's you subscribe to email newsletters and have them
| show up in your reader
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| One week everyone wants email turned into rss, and the next rss
| into email
| Animats wrote:
| If you're using Thunderbird, you can have it recognize the
| newsletter emails and send them somewhere for processing,
| probably including ad removal.
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(page generated 2024-08-21 23:00 UTC)