Comments on: Considering again the path of the river

By: “Phone” is to the iPhone as “RSS reader” is to ? | danielbachhuber

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:47:57 +0000

[...] 2007), I’ve been dedicated to Google Reader. I briefly switched to Fever and switched back because the mobile interface wasn’t as functional. Given this whole new Google+ thing, I have less and less confidence of serious, necessary product [...]

By: Daniel Bachhuber

Daniel Bachhuber — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:35:36 +0000

@Zack Sweet, I look forward to hearing about how your experience goes. I think what I would do if I wanted to try Fever again would be to dump as many RSS feeds within the scope if your interests as possible into Sparks. This will increase the breadth of the data Fever has to work with and should make the “What’s hot” feature more interesting. The issue that I ran into is that it rarely changed from day to day, and most commonly showed posts I had already come across multiple times via RSS, Twitter, etc.

By: Zack Shapiro

Zack Shapiro — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:57:57 +0000

Great post, Daniel.

I just bought Fever the other day and I’m eager to try it out. I’m having some authentication issues as their system can’t recognize the code that they gave me authorizing my use of Fever.

I’ve been hesitant to try Google Reader just because the idea of Fever seems so appealing: Fever learns me. Google Reader doesn’t.

By: Andrew Spittle

Andrew Spittle — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:49:28 +0000

Nice post Daniel. I’ve been meaning to comment on this for a while and want to take the time to fully reply through a post of my own but suffice it to say that Fever still works for me.

The mobile quandary with Fever being a standalone app and all is a good point but you don’t *have* to access it as a standalone app. You could just have it as a bookmark in Mobile Safari. That might lessen the friction there.

I’m personally able to structure my information equally well in Fever and Google Reader. The biggest issue that I have with Google Reader is that reading simply isn’t fun. I think it suffers from feature bloat and has so much crap crammed around the content that I find it extremely difficult to process information. Just my two cents. Look for a more fully thought out post from me in a couple days.

By: Ryan Sholin

Ryan Sholin — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:17:00 +0000

Lately, my Google Reader habit = check search feeds, troll comment view, scan everything shared by people I follow, and a quick ‘sort by magic’ glance at my mainline subscriptions. I might do that a few times a day, but I rarely get to Zero anymore.

Mixed feelings about it. On one hand, if it’s important, it’ll find me, usually via Twitter. On the other hand, I pay more attention to certain niches than everyone I follow, so I want to see posts on VentureBeat that not everyone “likes” or “shares” — right now I’m losing that a bit, especially when I sort by magic.

By: Lori Todd

Lori Todd — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:18:24 +0000

Also, I have tried Feedly but I never really “got it.” Perhaps it’s time to revisit it? Not sure how it would work mobile, though, and I’m keen on having my Reader and Starred Items pinned to my iPhone homescreen.

By: Lori Todd

Lori Todd — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:16:45 +0000

I have been very tempted to try out Fever, perhaps allured by it’s fancy UI and the idea of being able to avoid skimming 300 redundant items.

I need to add priority to my system, but generally I’m set up to use Will Stranathan’s Advanced Google-Fu technique: http://will.thestranathans.com/2009/01/advanced-google-reader-fu.html

By: Daniel Bachhuber

Daniel Bachhuber — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:42:08 +0000

I haven’t ever used Feedly, but thanks for the recommendation. I’ll try it out. How many feeds are you reading in it, and are they structured in any way? I think I like Google Reader’s interface well enough; it’s the challenge of prioritizing, or weighting even, my information flow that’s the tough nut to crack.

By: Mathew Ingram

Mathew Ingram — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:35:09 +0000

Have you tried Feedly? I have been using it for over a year now as a front-end to my Google Reader feeds, and it is excellent — and keeps getting better. Provides a magazine-style interface to your feeds, but also does some smart filtering based on your reading habits etc.