RSS has always been my go-to method for staying informed. Many times, RSS was deemed dead. All the web services that I have previously utilized have been terminated, including Rojo and Google Reader.
For a brief period, I hosted an RSS service myself, but then I switched to another syndication service. Currently, I use NetNewsWire with iCloud Drive on my Mac, which is the perfect solution.
⚠️ Please read the last paragraph before playing around with the options described.
Recently, I found that you can also use RSS to subscribe to social services like Mastodon or Bluesky.
The two offer RSS by default.
Default integration
Bluesky:
Enter your user handle
https://bsky.app/profile/tcboyle.com
Mastodon
Add .rss to the handle
https://indieweb.social/@larsolino.rss
💡 Hint: It depends on the instance configuration. 💡
Full content
The disadvantage of the above approaches is that only the text is delivered, with no content like pictures. This makes the whole thing less interesting.
You could resolve this issue by using a service called OpenRSS. Just prepend
https://openrss
to the handle link.
Bluesky
https://openrss.org/bsky.app/profile/tcboyle.com
Mastodon
https://openrss.org/indieweb.social/@larsolino
💡 I had to repeat adding the feed a few times before it was found for some items. Maybe OpenRSS.org needs to make a feed first.
Currently, not useful!
The solutions work perfectly, but the feeds are never updated, at least not in NetNewsWire. I think it has something to do with the Open RSS service, which might be too limited.
I hope one day I will be able to use RSS to follow social media channels, as it is much more convenient.
If you have a solution to the issue, please do not hesitate to contact me.