My thoughts on Fever

I’ve been using Fever for about 3 days now, and apart from some small problems, I’d have to say I’m very impressed. After my initial problems with it, I’m starting to see it for what it is, and I can fast see it becoming my sole feed reader.

The way I use(d) Google Reader

I started using Google Reader maybe 2 or 3 years ago, back when using an RSS reader was not something done by the masses (it still isn’t). I’ve experimented with some other readers, mainly Vienna and NetNewsWire, but have always come back to Google Reader after some time. I enjoy the portability of it, but it was always lacking something.

See, my problem with feed reading is I like to subscribe to things, but I can’t read it all. I just don’t have time. I’ve fluctuated from reading close to 350 feeds, down to about 90, and currently, I’m back up to 150.

All of these feeds don’t necessarily update everyday, but some update every 10 to 15 minutes, and that just leads to feed overload. The volume is high, but is it actually saying anything?

What’s a Fever got to do with a feed?

This is where Fever comes in. Yesterday, Shaun Inman introduced us to Fever. I’ve been using Shaun’s Mint for my site stats for quite a while now, and I’ve loved it. I like that its self hosted, meaning I have complete control over it. I like that its simple, I like that it tells me what I need to know at a glance, or I can drill down and see a nice granular view of what’s going on in my sites. Most of all, I like that it is a beautiful interface.

Fever does the same thing, but for my feeds. I can start out with a quick overview of what’s happening and then drill down if I want to read more.

But wait Jim, what are you talking about?

Fever works like an automated Digg mechanism, where I choose the content. ALL the content.

(As an aside, I’ve always really loved the idea of Digg, I just hate Digg itself. )

When you load up Fever, you’re presented with a view of all of the “Hot” items contained in your feeds. Fever looks at links from your feeds, and when they are matching, it promotes that link.

You also have 2 new folders that contain all of your feeds. Kindling, which are the feeds that you would consider your must reads, and Sparks, which are the high volume, low content link blogs.

Personally, for me, this is exactly how I like to read, and it makes finding my content even better. In Google Reader, I had one set of feeds tagged as my must reads. These were the feeds I started with every time I loaded up Reader, and then dug down from there.

What are now called Sparks are all those feeds that I regularly ignored for days, then clicked “Mark All As Read” when the I realized there was no way I was going to get to them.

What’s it look like?

Now this is where Fever really shines, the interface.

I’m using Fever as a standalone Fluid.app on my Mac at home (Shaun created a really nice icon for it too), and as an Google Chrome Application shortcut on my PC at work. It looks beautiful in each place.

In each place, it runs just like a desktop app, although not quite a snappy. I feel like these are limitations by my server and connection. Otherwise, it feels great.

Even better though, is using Fever on an iPhone. Shaun has coded Fever in a way that when it’s set up as a web clip, it runs almost exactly as a native iPhone App.

And that’s where the interface REALLY shines. There’s no address bars or status bars to deal with. It gives you your information in a concise, beautiful way. And, best of all, for a web app, it is FAST.

Is it worth paying for?

For me, after only 3 days, I would say unequivocally, yes.

A couple of caveats though:

  • If you don’t already have a webserver, I don’t know if this will be worth it to you.
  • Make sure you have a good web server. I initially installed on Dreamhost, and boy, was that a mistake. Fever was painfully slow. I then moved over to BlueHost, and I’ve been happy.
  • If you’re reading style doesn’t mesh with this, then you probably don’t have a need for it. For example, if you’re only subscribed to 25 or 30 feeds, not worth it.

Finally, Like Shawn Blanc, I’ve posted my OPML file right here, so if you need some help populating your Fever.