Renaissance

I have always loved RSS.

Since way back when, RSS readers are what I have made in my spare time.  You, or rather I, spend so much time reading the internet, you want the be experience to be tailored to you.

I have been using the current version of my hand-rolled web-based feed reader FeedThing for something like 7 years.  After the initial burst of activity to get it working, I haven't touched it much except to fix the occasional bug or annoyance.  I got it going to the point that (and only I) could use it and then just tailed off.

During those 7 years, RSS and feeds have become way less popular.  Obviously they were always very niche, but even amongst the small corner of the internet that ever liked them they have fallen by the wayside in favor of Twitter and Facebook and the relentless onslaught of the social.

So it was a pleasant surprise to have a post announcing a new feed format pop up.

I don't know if JSON Feed will take off.  What I do know is that since it has appeared, I have dusted off the FeedThing code, upgraded it onto a supported Django version, added such astonishing features as support for the back button, and of course added support for JSON Feed.  And from there I've been sparked into all sorts of activity.  Upgrading other personal projects and fixing technical problems on my hosting.

I even found this very, very defunct blog.

So thank you to all involved.  Even if it doesn't take off, I am very grateful for the inspiration it gave for a month of nerdery I thought I didn't have in me any more.

And that's probably about it for the next 7 years.