Adam Kalsey

This is the blog of Adam Kalsey. Unusual depth and complexity. Rich, full body with a hint of nutty earthiness.

User Experience

Broken aggregator

17 Jan 2003

I read the contents of several hundred sites each day through my news aggregator. I’ve switched aggregators a few times over the last few years, starting with a home-grown web-based aggregator, followed by Radio, Amphetadesk, then Radio again, back to Amphetadesk, and currently Aggie. If the site doesn’t have a news feed, I either create one through a small scraping tool I built, or don’t bother to read it.

All the aggregators I’ve tried have a serious flaw. They let feed developers break the aggregator display. A single unclosed <em> tag causes all the posts from all the sites from that point on to be italicized. That’s something that I can generally live with, but it’s possible for those unclosed tags to compound (or would that be to aggregate?) and make a mess of my display.

Today, one feed forgot to close an <em>, another forgot to close a <b> and another forgot to close a <small>. What I ended up with was tiny, bold, italicized text that’s next to impossible to read.

The problem could have been worse. If someone forgot to add the > to the end of a tag, the rest of the text on the page might be ignored, at least until a closing angle bracket occured.

But much worse, it’s possible for a feed developer to inject malicious code into their feed, and most aggregators would happily render the HTML to the browser. A bit of clever JavaScript in a feed that exploits a browser’s vulnerability to cross site scripting attacks could do quite a bit of damage.

I suggest that the various aggregator developers take steps to eliminate these problems. Check for unclosed tags and close them. Strip things like script tags from the feed before rendering them.

Recently Written

Your OKR Cascade is Breaking Your Strategy
Aug 1: Most companies cascade OKRs down their org chart thinking it creates alignment. Instead, it fragments strategy and marginalizes supporting teams. Here's what works better than the waterfall approach.
Your Prioritization Problem Is a Strategy Problem
Jul 23: Most teams struggle with prioritization because they're trying to optimize for everything at once. The real problem isn't having too many options—it's not having a clear strategy to choose between them. Without strategy, every decision feels equally important. With strategy, most decisions become obvious.
Behind schedule
Jul 21: Your team is 6 weeks late and still missing features. The solution isn't working harder—it's accepting that your deadlines were fake all along. Ship what you have. Cut ruthlessly. Stop letting "one more day" turn into one more month.
VC’s Future Lies In Building Winners
Jun 21: AI and megafunds are about to kill the traditional venture model, forcing smaller VCs to stop hunting for hidden gems and start rolling up their sleeves to fix broken companies instead.
Should individual people have OKRs?
May 14: A good OKR describes and measures an outcome, but it can be challenging to create an outcome-focused OKR for an individual.
10 OKR traps and how to avoid them
May 8: I’ve helped lots of teams implement OKRs or fix a broken OKR process. Here are the 10 most common problems I see, and what to do instead.
AI is Smart, But Wisdom Requires Judgement
May 3: AI can process data at lightning speed, but wisdom comes from human judgment—picking the best imperfect option when facts alone don’t point the way.
Decoding Product Leadership Titles
Mar 18: Not all product leadership titles mean what they sound like. ‘Head of Product’ can mean anything from a senior PM to a true VP. Here’s how to tell the difference.

Older...

What I'm Reading