While RSS.chat mostly solves the issue of comments (at least read-only), it does not really solve the issue of liking in a distributed system - it depends on a central server. So either there is still a centralized system, assuming everybody would use the same likes server, or every feed has a different server and you need to authorize with them before you can like something. And even that does not do a good job preventing like-spam.
\nMy solution for liking is different:
\nThis system makes sure that every like can be validated and allows you to detect cheaters. Clients should validate at least one like before accepting the like count and showing it.
\nUsers can only like once per hostname. By default, the like server must only accept one like per second-level domain, to avoid someone creating dynamic domain names to add an infinite number of likes. Only whitelisted domains can like with subdomains. This should limit the ability to cheat.
\nAnd if like-cheating is getting out of hand, there could be a validator service that requires additional proof from likers the first time they like something. But that would be a later step.
\n", "date_published": "2026-10-13T23:01:00.000Z", "date_modified": "2026-10-13T23:01:42.700Z", "authors": [{"name":"Tim"}] }, { "id": "https://www.tjansen.de/blog/0007", "url": "https://www.tjansen.de/blog/socialspec.html", "title": "SocialSpec", "content_html": "I discovered SocialSpec today, which is pretty close to what I intended with sosocial.dev. It is currently mostly focused on user profiles, not on social-media feeds, but maybe it's something we can collaborate on.
\n", "date_published": "2026-10-13T23:00:00.000Z", "date_modified": "2026-10-13T23:00:20.846Z", "authors": [{"name":"Tim"}] }, { "id": "https://tjansen.de/blog0005", "url": "https://www.tjansen.de/blog/instagram-tiktok-reels-shorts-like-rss-feeds.html", "title": "Instagram / Tiktok / Reels / Shorts - like RSS feeds", "content_html": "I am working on concepts to have independent, simple web servers providing RSS/Json-based protocols to give users the same viewing experience as Facebook/TikTok/YouTube/X/Reddit/Instagram. This is where we are:
\nBut where is the equivalent to Instagram and TikTok? Those swipable full-screen images or videos with text overlay?
\nI think all the data can already be in the feed today:
\nSo we have all the data. The reader just needs the right hints to render it correctly. Let's call them card-based feeds.
\nSo two things are needed.
\nGiving the RSS Readers a hint to display a post as a card-based post is relatively simple with extensions.
\nFor XML, we can use a simple new element in our own namespace to make an item as a card:
\n<card xmlns=‘https://sosocial.dev/' />\n(side note: XML namespaces are wonderful and pretty much the only time I prefer XML over JSON)
\nJSON Feeds also support extensions, albeit in a less elegant way. We need to put something like this in our feed:
\n"_sosocial": {\n "about": "https://sosocial.dev/",\n "cards": true,\n}\nBackward-compatibility for existing readers is very simple as long as the feed has only a single image/video per post: just do nothing. A typical reader will display the image/video at the top, and the text underneath. Not perfect, but it will work anywhere.
\nMultiple-images are more difficult. I would propose to duplicate all images but the first into HTML, marked with a special class. Card-supporting readers will filter them out. Existing readers will display them.
\nThat basically means that every item with multiple images starts their HTML with a special div:
\n<div class="sosocial-alt-card">\n <img src="/img1"/>\n <hr/>\n <img src="/img2"/>\n <hr/>\n <img src="/img3"/>\n</div>\nCard-supporting RSS readers will not display 'sosocial-alt-card'. All others will show it.
\nP.S.: I bought the domain sosocial.dev when it was on sale for just $1. I was too lazy to check there is already a company of the same name. So I need a new domain...
Just to remind myself later, and to give some context: there are currently 5 things I am more or less working on, in various stages.
\nBesides Downread, one of the projects I worked on was supposed to be Yellowfeeds.com, an RSS directory, reader-neutral and open to everybody. After a discussion with my, ehm, personal AI lawyer we agreed that any name starting with Yellow is not worth the trouble because of a telecom company of the same name.
\nA bit frustrated, I started searching for domains and discovered that rssdirectory.org was available. Not very distinctive, but at least SEO-friendly.
\n", "date_published": "2026-10-12T18:13:00.000Z", "date_modified": "2026-10-12T18:13:11.269Z", "authors": [{"name":"Tim"}] }, { "id": "https://tjansen.de/blog0002", "url": "https://www.tjansen.de/blog/posts/0002", "content_html": "It's embarrassing, but it turns out that Downread's Google Auth was still in testing and only allowed my Google accounts... nobody told me. Good that I caught it before really starting to promote Downread, but still..
\nOn a positive note, I just added Apple authentication. For everybody.
\nApps are also making good progress.
\n", "date_published": "2026-10-11T10:49:00.000Z", "date_modified": "2026-10-11T10:49:38.711Z", "authors": [{"name":"Tim"}] }, { "id": "https://tjansen.de/blog0001", "url": "https://www.tjansen.de/blog/first-post.html", "title": "First post", "content_html": "This is just my first post here. Not really published, but whatever. This micro-blog will be more like a stream of consciousness than anything else. Don't even know whether I keep it, but here we go...
\n", "date_published": "2026-10-11T10:47:00.000Z", "date_modified": "2026-10-11T10:47:52.504Z", "authors": [{"name":"Tim"}] } ] }