Google takes up with RSS again

RSS. © iStock.

According to the Chromium blog, Google is focusing on Chrome as it rethinks how people discover the RSS-fed information they really want.* Google Discover and Google News feed on Chrome Android, but they are powered by algorithms that rely on users’ search history and other data, and not on choices explicitly made by the user. Some Chrome for Android users will soon find a test “Follow” button that acts as an RSS reader. They will click on it to subscribe to the RSS feed of a preferred site and keep up with its publications in a tab called “Following”, whose interface is similar to that of the Google Discover feed. “We’re exploring how to simplify the experience of getting the latest and greatest from your favorite sites directly in Chrome, building on the open RSS web standard,” Google’s post reads. Though this older tool is unfortunately little known aside from power web users, this low-stakes experiment, which has not yet been slated for wider deployment, is promising as it uses a pre-existing, robust and efficient technology.

(*) In 2013, the company dismayed users when it killed its lauded Google RSS-feed Reader, only to reassign development teams to social media projects that had mitigated success. Remember OpenSocial, Google Buzz and Google+?

⇨ Ars Technica, Ron Amadeo, “Chrome’s RSS-powered “Follow” button is like a rebooted Google Reader.”

⇨ Chromium Blog, Janice Wong, “An experiment in helping users and web publishers create deeper connections on Chrome.”

2021-05-20