Provide a built-in option to easily add RSS/Atom feeds as channels to Telegram.
This is kind of a major feature, and while it may sound controversial and unnecessary (there are standalone RSS clients, this can be implemented with bots etc.) there are a few arguments I'd like to adduce:
RSS feeds are basically almost the same thing as channels from the user's POV.
The only important thing that distinguishes RSS posts from channel posts are the inline images, which can be supported only for RSS-source channel type or even considered to be supported in all Telegram messages.
The rest of HTML markup can be either easily converted to the existing limited formatting or filtered out, the same way TUI clients (like newsboat) do it.
Another possible way of rendering the feeds with huge content inside is via Instant Views.
Migrating your subscriptions can be as easy as providing an OPML file to the Telegram client, that finds which of the feeds already exist as channels, sends the rest of the URIs to the Telegram server to process, and subscribes to all of them.
While RSS-to-Telegram bots exist, this is not a user friendly experience. Most people who failed to find a channel with the information they need won't bother to create one and launch a bot instead. Even more people don't even know what RSS is. However if creating RSS-source channels would be as easy as described here, more people could participate in creating such, thus providing more opportunities to the least sophisticated users.
More channel content is great. While many authors maintain their own amazing channels, there are a lot of important news sources not presented in Telegram. This feature can significantly enlarge the amount of content offered to the end user by the Telegram platform.
Having all the news of same kind (public, regularly updated, non-interactive) delivered to one place is convenient.
Telegram has the resources to compete with the cloud-based RSS clients. Many of them are either monetized through ads and user tracking, or demand paid subscription, or just unreliable (remember the destiny of Google Reader?).
Of course a maintainer of the original feed should be provided a way to claim the rights to the RSS-source type channel, manage it, receive the monetization revenue, or opt out completely.
Finally, no one suffers if they don't need it at all. This won't complicate the end user experience. Most people wouldn't notice any difference except more channels available to them.
1️⃣ add “RSS” to the list of chat types (“Contacts”, “Non-Contacts”, “Groups”, “Channels”, “Bots”)
2️⃣ raise the limit of subscriptions (currently no more than 500 chats per user)
3️⃣ RSS @-names could use “RSS” as the ending (like “Bot” for bots)
4️⃣ inline video (in addition to inline images)
D
Deleted Account
I like the idea and additional suggestions, but I don't understand if it's supposed to be "offline", with the individual clients having the possibility to add RSS feeds or "online", where the Telegram servers refresh the feeds.
In any case, having the opportunity to publicize the feed as a channel would be much appreciated, it would be a killer feature for less technical users to subscribe to news and podcasts through searchable channels!
Krond
I guess there's no direct need for this. You can already use IFTTT to create a channel for the feed you need, craft a custom IV for it if it's broken or missing and go on with it. There are a lot of channels like that already.
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1️⃣ add “RSS” to the list of chat types (“Contacts”, “Non-Contacts”, “Groups”, “Channels”, “Bots”)
2️⃣ raise the limit of subscriptions (currently no more than 500 chats per user)
3️⃣ RSS @-names could use “RSS” as the ending (like “Bot” for bots)
4️⃣ inline video (in addition to inline images)
In any case, having the opportunity to publicize the feed as a channel would be much appreciated, it would be a killer feature for less technical users to subscribe to news and podcasts through searchable channels!