Andrew Shell launches I Heart RSS, a badge-based directory for personal feeds

Why it matters

I Heart RSS gives independent publishers a lightweight distribution mechanism they control, while testing whether reciprocal links can rebuild discovery without an algorithmic feed.

Andrew Shell launched I Heart RSS on July 30th, turning a small homepage badge into an admission ticket for a public directory and a shared subscription list of independent websites.

Shell, a Madison, Wisconsin-based software engineer, described the project in the launch post as a directory for people who love RSS. By August 1st, its membership page listed 24 sites.

The directory is small by design. Publishers add an I Heart RSS badge or text link to their homepage, make an RSS 2.0 feed discoverable in the page's code, and submit the site's URL. I Heart RSS checks the reciprocal link and feed before adding the publisher to its public membership list.

That backlink is Shell's core product decision. It turns membership into a public, self-selected statement from the publisher instead of an entry gathered by a crawler. Removing the link eventually removes the listing, so control remains with the person running the website.

A directory that feed readers can understand

The more consequential output is an OPML file containing every member feed. OPML is a portable list format supported by many RSS readers, allowing someone to subscribe to the directory's full membership in one import rather than opening and following each site separately.

Shell argues that personal publishing has a discovery problem. In his July 27th explanation of the project, he wrote that personal blogs have multiplied while search engines, social feeds and the decline of traditional blogrolls have made them harder to find.

I Heart RSS combines those older blogroll habits with a machine-readable subscription layer. Existing projects such as Ye Olde Blogroll and feedle also help readers find independent publishers. Shell's project adds a reciprocal membership requirement: each listed publisher must visibly identify with the directory and expose a compatible feed.

The format restriction is unusually firm. I Heart RSS accepts RSS 2.0 feeds and excludes Atom-only feeds. Shell's publishing guide provides configuration instructions for Jekyll, Eleventy, Zola and Astro, along with a hand-written feed template. That makes the project partly a directory and partly a compliance tool for publishers whose feeds are valid but difficult for readers to discover automatically.

The validator checks that a homepage links back to I Heart RSS and exposes a discoverable RSS feed. Publishers can also test their setup without joining the directory.

Shell has spent years building around feeds

I Heart RSS follows a long line of open-web work from Shell. His personal site says he has hosted and developed the JavaScript implementation of rssCloud Server since 2015. rssCloud lets compatible feed readers receive update notifications instead of repeatedly polling publishers for new posts. He also built feeds for the Federated Wiki community.

Shell's background includes conventional startup work as well. His resume lists him as co-founder and chief technology officer of Madison-based Pinpoint Software from 2011 through early 2018, where he helped build two SaaS applications. Business Wire reported in 2021 that Applied Data Corporation acquired Pinpoint Software's Date Check Pro product; transaction terms were not disclosed.

He now works as a team lead and senior software engineer at PetPlace, according to his resume. I Heart RSS is presented through Shell's personal site and carries the feel of an engineer-maintained public utility, with no analytics and no cookies.

Those choices create a narrow data footprint. According to the project's privacy and operations page, I Heart RSS stores submitted URLs and a truncated, keyed hash derived from the submitter's IP address for rate limiting and abuse review. Submission records are deleted after 90 days. Listings are checked about once every six days, and a failed check can remain visible for roughly three weeks while the service retries it.

FeedLand supplies the live reading layer

The homepage also displays recent posts from member sites through FeedLand, a service for sharing and discovering feeds. Shell's directory remains responsible for validating and publishing the membership list, while FeedLand supplies the live blogroll that lets visitors open recent items without first importing the OPML file.

That integration gives I Heart RSS an immediate reading interface, though it also adds an external dependency to the homepage. FeedLand currently says it is not accepting new user registrations while a larger version is being built. I Heart RSS does not require visitors to create a FeedLand account, and its underlying member directory and OPML file remain directly accessible.

Shell's bet is that a modest amount of visible coordination can improve distribution for personal sites. A badge tells visitors that RSS is available. The reciprocal link proves that membership is intentional. The OPML list turns dozens of separate feeds into one portable collection.

Twenty-four members do not establish a new distribution channel. They do show that Shell's mechanism works without asking publishers to hand control of their writing or audience to another social platform. The next test is whether the badge spreads beyond the open-web regulars who already know why an OPML file is useful.