Should I use RSS instead of allowing posts?
Hey everyone
I've been building a community - Kollood - which aims to help indie hackers collaborate in a fun, new way.
The feature I'm working on is for users to write posts. Pretty much like how all forums work. But I don't want Kollood to be like other communities/forums. In fact, I'm quite reluctant about the idea of users adding posts at all.
I also think that users should own the content they write. Hence I thought it would be cool if you could add your own RSS link and then other users can subscribe to your feed within Kollood.
So I'm curious what your feedback is on this idea? Do you think it's better to let users create posts or do you like the idea of using an RSS feed?
I'd also not implement upvoting or commenting if this was a feature. So essentially Kollood would act as an aggregator of indie feeds.
Some quick pros and cons of the RSS feed:
pros
- Users own their content and don't have to cross-post across different sites
- I don't need to build a nice editor for users to write content
cons
- Users would have to have an existing RSS feed (major friction for people who just want to start posting)
The question I would probably have first is how this would differ from just installing an RSS feed reader. It might not need to be structurally different, since that's a tool that people use. But it might be a harder sell to a crowd that's (presumably) technically savvy enough to get something like Tiny Tiny RSS running for themselves.
The other problem, as you indirectly point out, is the support cost in getting people to set up their own blogs, set up RSS correctly, and learn the UI for that particular system, especially if that's a part of the "price of admission" to a community.
Again, none of that is bad. A movement to get people blogging and sharing their content is a net benefit to the industry, no matter how it works, after all.
I'm an RSS fan and think this could be great. Also, I love anything which encourages people to own their own stuff.
On IH for example, people often cross post their content, which is fine, but maybe they would do it more if it was automatically generated via RSS.
The danger is that many people don't understand RSS, even some don't have it set up on their blogs. I wonder if you could have the option of both, but somehow design it so that RSS is the preferred way.
Thanks for the feedback @rosiesherry.
This is some good food for thought.