If you think RSS is dead, try explaining that to 900 million Telegram users who read it every day without even knowing it. — Author, looking at RSS-to-Telegram bot statistics
The Obituary That Never Happened
In 2013, Google shut down Google Reader, and the entire tech internet fell into an existential crisis. Media outlets rushed to write obituaries: "End of an Era," "Obsolete Technology," "Nobody Needs This XML." They buried it solemnly, with honors, to the sound of a requiem from Hacker News. Only the corpse forgot to die.
Twelve years later, in 2025, RSS is more alive than ever. It just changed its outfit. Instead of an orange icon with radio waves, now there's Telegram's blue paper plane. Same body, different clothes.
The paradox of technologies: they don't die — they mutate, hide behind new interfaces, live in symbiosis with younger organisms. RSS became an invisible layer between content and messenger. A protocol, not a product. A backbone, not a face.
RSS didn't die — it simply stopped being a user problem. People read RSS through Telegram without knowing it's RSS. Just like they drink coffee without knowing about pH and extraction. What matters is the taste.
Why RSS Lost the Interface Battle (But Won the Protocol War)
The Cemetery of RSS Readers
RSS aggregators of the 2000s were like Vim evangelist programmers: technically right, morally superior, but absolutely unsuitable for normal people. You had to want to figure it out, accept the complexity, love XML. Regular users didn't want to. They wanted "click and it works."
High barrier to entry — the mortal sin of UX:
- Install a separate app (in the era of web applications)
- Understand the concept of feeds (what even is that?)
- Manually search for RSS links (often hidden in
<head>, like pirate treasure) - Configure categories, tags, filters (spend your weekend organizing reading)
The loneliness of protocol:
RSS was like a sociopath among social network extroverts. Your subscriptions were only yours. Read a brilliant article? Good for you. Nobody will know. No comments, likes, reactions. No virality. Content dies in your RSS reader like sound in a vacuum.
Monetization as a philosophical problem:
How do you make money from people you can't see? RSS subscribers were like ghosts: they download your content, but you don't know who they are, where they're from, what they like. Advertisers don't like ghosts. They like profiles, metrics, targeting. RSS offered anonymity in the age of Big Data. Noble, but financially hopeless.
Telegram as a Trojan Horse for RSS
Then came Telegram and solved all RSS problems without even mentioning it's RSS. Brilliant trick: take a dying protocol, wrap it in a convenient interface, add emoji — and millions of people are again subscribing to RSS feeds, sincerely believing they're just reading a Telegram channel.
Low barrier to entry: Telegram is already installed on your parents' phones, your neighbor's grandma's phone, your cat's phone (almost). No need to explain anything — just tap the link, subscribe. Clicking is easier than thinking.
Sociality out of the box: Reactions (💩 for bad news), comments (flame wars in threads), reposts (virality). RSS gained a voice, a face, emotions. From ghost to living person.
Push notifications: Content comes to you, like taxes — without asking permission, but in a good way. You don't need to remember to check your reader. Phone vibrates, you read. Pavlov's conditioned reflex for content.
Analytics and money: Telegram shows creators reach, views, audience activity time. You can sell ads, subscriptions, donations. RSS transformed from charity to business. Capitalism defeated anonymity.
How RSS + Telegram Work Together
RSS-to-Telegram Bridges
How it works:
- Bot monitors RSS feed (e.g., every 5 minutes)
- Finds new entries
- Formats text, adds links, images
- Publishes to Telegram channel
Popular tools:
- RSS to Telegram Bot (@RobotRSSBot) — free, simple
- IFTTT — automation platform, $2.5/month
- Zapier — more powerful, from $20/month
- n8n / Make (Integromat) — self-hosted automation
- Custom Telegram bots — Python + feedparser + python-telegram-bot
With an RSS-to-Telegram bridge, any site with an RSS feed automatically becomes a Telegram channel. Set it up once — works for years.
Minimalist Bridge Architecture
# Python example (simplified)
import feedparser
import asyncio
from telegram import Bot
RSS_URL = "https://example.com/feed.xml"
TELEGRAM_CHANNEL = "@my_channel"
CHECK_INTERVAL = 300 # 5 minutes
bot = Bot(token="YOUR_BOT_TOKEN")
seen_entries = set()
async def check_feed():
feed = feedparser.parse(RSS_URL)
for entry in feed.entries[:5]: # Last 5 entries
entry_id = entry.get('id') or entry.link
if entry_id not in seen_entries:
# Format message
message = f"<b>{entry.title}</b>\n\n"
message += f"{entry.summary[:300]}...\n\n"
message += f"🔗 <a href='{entry.link}'>Read more</a>"
# Send to channel
await bot.send_message(
chat_id=TELEGRAM_CHANNEL,
text=message,
parse_mode='HTML'
)
seen_entries.add(entry_id)
# Run check loop
while True:
await check_feed()
await asyncio.sleep(CHECK_INTERVAL)What the code does:
- Parses RSS feed every 5 minutes
- Checks for new entries (by ID)
- Formats title, snippet, link
- Publishes to Telegram channel
Extensions:
- Add images via
send_photo() - Store
seen_entriesin DB (SQLite/Redis) - Handle errors (unavailable feed, rate limits)
- Filter by keywords
- Add hashtags automatically
Business Cases: How to Make Money from Others' Content (Legally)
1. Content Aggregation: Curation as a Business Model
Case: Create a Telegram channel without writing a single word
You're not a journalist. You're not a blogger. You just know where to find quality content. And that's enough.
Example: "ML/AI News" — aggregates posts from arXiv, Papers With Code, Hugging Face, top AI blogs
Recipe for success:
- Find 5-10 authoritative sources with RSS (those you read with morning coffee)
- Set up RSS-to-Telegram bridge for each (30 minutes of work)
- All feeds pour into one channel (automatically while you sleep)
- Add hashtags (#research, #tutorial, #news) — for the appearance of organization
- Moderation: delete obvious trash manually (10 minutes a day)
Monetization (or how to turn curation into money):
- Ads from niche companies (ML recruiters pay for audience access)
- Affiliate links to courses (Coursera, Udemy love affiliates)
- Paid subscription to exclusive content (your own insights once a week)
2. Competitor Monitoring: Legal Surveillance
Case: Spy on competitors without breaking the law
Know what your competitor is doing? No? They've already released three features while you were planning a sprint. RSS bot in a private channel is like a personal detective who works 24/7 and doesn't require a salary.
Recipe for paranoia (in a good way):
- Collect RSS feeds from competitors' blogs/news (they publish, you subscribe)
- Set up RSS bot in a private Telegram channel (only your team, no leaks)
- Configure notifications for keywords (releases, features, partnerships, layoffs)
What you get:
- Whole team sees what competitors are doing (no morning standups "what's new with them?")
- Can quickly react to their announcements (copy feature in a week while they celebrate release)
- History saved in Telegram (eternal memory of others' mistakes and victories)
Don't copy competitors' content directly to a public channel — that's copyright infringement. Use for internal monitoring only.
3. Personal Brand with Automation
Case: Syndicate your content from different sources into one channel
Example: You have a blog on Medium, YouTube, GitHub — want to aggregate everything into one Telegram
How to do it:
- Medium blog → RSS (
medium.com/feed/@username) - YouTube channel → RSS (
youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=XXX) - GitHub releases → RSS (via
github.com/user/repo/releases.atom) - Set up RSS bridge for all three
- All updates automatically in one channel
Benefits:
- Audience sees all your content in one place
- No need to manually duplicate posts
- Telegram as a single entry point
4. News Digest for Clients
Case: B2B company creates weekly industry news digest
How to do it:
- Connect RSS feeds from industry media
- Set up keyword filtering
- Manually select 5-10 best news items from channel once a week
- Publish digest with expert commentary
Value for clients:
- Saves time monitoring the industry
- Shows your expertise
- Keeps you in the information field
Alternative to email newsletter:
- Telegram channels don't go to spam
- No deliverability issues
- Higher open rate (push vs email)
5. Internal Company News Channel
Case: Automate internal communications
RSS source examples:
- Corporate blog (WordPress/Medium) → RSS
- GitLab/GitHub releases → RSS
- Confluence updates → RSS (via plugin)
- Jira completed tasks → RSS (via JQL filter)
What's published automatically:
- New articles in knowledge base
- Production deploys (GitLab CI → RSS → Telegram)
- New product version releases
- Documentation changes
Result:
- Team always aware of updates
- No need to email everyone
- Change history preserved
Analytics and Data: From Blindness to All-Seeing Eye
Classic RSS: Working Blind
Publishing to RSS was like shouting into the void and hoping someone hears. You shout, echo is silent. RSS statistics are a philosophical koan about the nature of existence: if content was downloaded but nobody read it, does it even exist?
What RSS feed owner sees:
- Number of XML downloads (not people! Bots download too)
- Client user-agent (Feedly v.3.14.15 — hi, one person)
- Request time (03:42 AM — insomnia or crawler?)
What's NOT visible (complete blindness):
- Who's subscribed (faceless ghosts)
- Do they read articles completely (maybe just headlines?)
- Which entries are more popular (all equal in darkness)
- How many people actually read (maybe nobody?)
Telegram: Panopticon for Content
Then came Telegram and turned on the lights. Now you see everything. Every click, every view, every reaction. Big Brother for content creators — and it's wonderful (if you're the creator, not the reader).
What Telegram Analytics provides (free):
Practical application:
Hypothesis testing:
- Publish post at 9:00 AM → 1000 views
- Publish post at 6:00 PM → 3000 views
Conclusion: Audience active in evening, configure RSS bridge for evening publication
A/B testing headlines:
- RSS gives title
<title>Update: New Features</title> - Bot rewrites: "🚀 10 new features you've been waiting for"
- Compare CTR → optimize
Integration with Analytics
UTM tags in links:
# RSS gives link: https://blog.com/post
# Bot adds UTM:
link = f"{entry.link}?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=rss_bot&utm_campaign=auto"Google Analytics tracking:
- See how much traffic from Telegram channel
- Which articles perform better
- Time on site, conversions
RSS + Telegram + Analytics combo:
- RSS feed → new article
- Bot publishes to Telegram with UTM
- User clicks → GA records
- See full funnel: publication → click → conversion
Technical Pitfalls and Solutions
Pitfall #1: Duplicate Posts
Problem: RSS sometimes returns old entries as new (changed pubDate)
Solution:
# Don't rely only on pubDate
# Use unique ID + content hash
import hashlib
def get_entry_hash(entry):
content = entry.title + entry.link + entry.get('summary', '')
return hashlib.md5(content.encode()).hexdigest()
seen_hashes = set()
for entry in feed.entries:
entry_hash = get_entry_hash(entry)
if entry_hash not in seen_hashes:
# Publish
seen_hashes.add(entry_hash)Pitfall #2: Telegram API Rate Limits
Problem: Telegram Bot API limits 30 messages/sec to one channel
Solution:
import asyncio
async def publish_with_delay(entries):
for entry in entries:
await bot.send_message(...)
await asyncio.sleep(2) # 2 seconds between postsOr batching:
- Accumulate posts for 1 hour
- Publish digest (up to 10 entries in one message)
Pitfall #3: Invalid HTML in RSS
Problem: RSS may contain invalid HTML (unclosed tags, special characters)
Solution:
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import html
def clean_html(text):
# Parse HTML
soup = BeautifulSoup(text, 'html.parser')
# Remove tags, keep text
text = soup.get_text()
# Escape special characters for Telegram HTML
text = html.escape(text)
return text[:500] # Trim to 500 charactersPitfall #4: Missing Images
Problem: RSS gives only text, no preview image
Solution:
# Parse first image from <content:encoded> or <description>
soup = BeautifulSoup(entry.content[0].value, 'html.parser')
img = soup.find('img')
if img and img.get('src'):
await bot.send_photo(
chat_id=CHANNEL,
photo=img['src'],
caption=message,
parse_mode='HTML'
)
else:
await bot.send_message(...) # Without imageRSS Future: Protocol Instead of Product
Death as Metamorphosis
Technologies don't die — they evolve from butterflies into caterpillars, then back into butterflies, but of a different color. RSS stopped being a user product and became infrastructure protocol. Invisible but ubiquitous. Like TCP/IP: nobody says "I'm going to use some TCP now," but the internet doesn't work without it.
2025 trend: RSS transforms into inter-service content plumbing
Examples of invisible RSS:
- Podcast apps (Spotify, Apple Podcasts) — RSS inside, beautiful UI outside
- YouTube — provides RSS for every channel (though there's an official API), like an emergency exit
- Substack — generates RSS for email subscriptions (email may die, RSS is eternal)
- Notion, Obsidian Publish — RSS as breathing: not visible, but death without it
RSS as a lazy API:
- Simpler than REST API (no authorization needed, no tokens needed, no Postman needed)
- Standardized for centuries (XML Schema that will outlive JSON)
- CDN cacheable (server can sleep while content is delivered)
Telegram as RSS Reader for Masses
Statistics from parallel reality:
- ~30% of Telegram news channels are automatic RSS aggregators (and nobody knows)
- Largest media outlets (RBC, Meduza, TJ) duplicate RSS → Telegram (did you think editors manually copy?)
- Hybrid models emerged: 80% RSS + 20% manual curation (automation with a human face)
Evolution as a cycle:
2005: RSS → Google Reader (golden age)
2013: Google Reader shut down → wailing and gnashing of teeth
2020: Telegram bots → RSS-to-Telegram (Phoenix rises)
2025: Telegram as main way to consume RSS (nobody knows it's RSS)
RSS didn't replace Telegram. Telegram became a beautiful face for ugly XML. Technology stayed, costume changed. Like in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," only backwards: ugly insides, beautiful shell.
Practical Checklist: Launching RSS→Telegram Channel
Step 1: Choose Sources (1 hour)
RSS finding tools:
- Chrome plugin "RSS Subscription Extension"
- Service
rss.app— generates RSS for sites without it feed43.com— creates RSS from HTML pages
Step 2: Create Telegram Channel (15 minutes)
Step 3: Set Up RSS Bridge (30 minutes)
Option A: Ready-made bot (simple)
- Find @RobotRSSBot in Telegram
- Send command
/add https://example.com/feed.xml @your_channel - Configure check interval (
/set_interval 5)
Option B: Self-hosted (control)
- Deploy Python script (example above)
- Run on VPS (DigitalOcean, Hetzner)
- Configure systemd for autostart
- Logs via journalctl
Option C: No-code (fast)
- Create account on IFTTT or Zapier
- Create applet: RSS Feed → Telegram
- Configure message template
Step 4: Testing and Optimization (week)
Step 5: Attract Audience (ongoing)
Conclusion: Symbiosis Instead of Death
RSS in 2025 didn't die — it found a host:
Like mycelium lives underground and mushrooms are visible on the surface — so RSS became invisible infrastructure, and Telegram became the visible face. Symbiosis of two organisms: one provides structure and standard, the other — interface and audience.
✅ For users: Easier to read in Telegram than explain to grandma what Feedly is ✅ For creators: Analytics instead of black hole, money instead of charity ✅ For business: Content distribution automation without hiring SMM manager
RSS → Telegram combo provides:
- Automation (set up once — works forever, like atomic clock)
- Wide audience (900+ million people who already know how to use Telegram)
- Detailed analytics (see everything: who, when, how much — Big Brother for content)
- Monetization (ads, subscriptions, donations — capitalism as it is)
- Social layer (reactions, reposts, flame wars — people bring XML to life)
If you have content with RSS — connect Telegram. If planning to launch media — do RSS + Telegram right away. If you don't understand why — remember that RSS survived Google Reader, and will survive us all. And Telegram made it relevant again.
Next steps (or how to start experimenting):
- Choose 3 RSS feeds you read yourself
- Create Telegram channel (5 minutes)
- Set up RSS bot (30 minutes and zero code)
- Invite first 10 subscribers (friends, colleagues, cat)
- Monitor metrics for a week (see what works)
- Scale or pivot (like in startups, only simpler)
