This past week, it seems that Amazon's goodreads service killed their RSS feeds.
Look! It's official.
Though, I must say, this was very quiet. This note buried deep in a help article from years ago seems to be the only official messaging I can find.
But. Things broke. So I noticed. And it seems like I was not the only one...
This is a pretty big bummer for me.
Obviously, goodreads is Amazon, and Amazon isn't exactly known to be the good guys. But I have always appreciated that they keep this big database online. And it's books -- a living vestige of the "old amazon" that's quaint and, well, bookish. People I respect use it and don't feel bad about it. It's a little jank, but a little bit the right kind of jank, if you know what I mean. And... well, it had RSS!
But. That's no longer. So. Boo them.
To be honest, the RSS feed was pretty much the only feature I used on the site.
I rarely updated my account. Only recently, I did start adding my book completion, but even then - I actively avoided going to the goodreads website-- I had an emacs
Not even mentioning that they already killed their API and lemme tell you this integration is an absolute HACK.
But. I love getting updates about what people read!
Almost every day, I go on my RSS reader, and one of my favorite things was the incredibly quiet, slow stream of reading updates from my very few friends who actually used the service.
The light touch updates are to me, exactly what The Social Web is all about, and getting these updates often became a fun excuse to reach out by text. (See Below) If I'm going to participate in Surveillance Culture - might as well make it kind of fun.
In response to this turn of events. I'm going to do 3 things:
1. Put MY reading list online!
You can now go to /reading to see the books that I read. That same .org file now updates this site, instead of syncing with goodreads. And there's a dedicated RSS feed for it.
2. Highlight other people's reading lists
You can now go to /reading-lists and see some.
3. Generally encourage people to do the same!
Starting here!
Some texts that it prompted
