I originally just wanted to post a few invitation codes on v2ex, but as I wrote, I realized it was also time to write a blog about my experience with Follow.
I personally got into RSS and RSSHub relatively early. I have been following Follow since its early launch. I have used self-hosted tinyRSS, freshRSS, and other RSS readers, and before Follow, I was using inoreader, which was also quite good. After Follow was released, I excitedly shared many invitation codes, both for my own channel and for friends, especially when the list feature was just launched. I happily created an image list, exchanging all earnings for invitation codes; the more people used it, the happier I was. So far, I have issued 15 invitation codes, experienced it for 45 days, subscribed to 474 sources, and created 10 lists, which should be considered heavy usage.
So far, I have issued 15 invitation codes.
Now, let’s talk about the noticeable pros and cons and features:
Highlighted Features#
The multi-view and categorization feature of Follow is fantastic. Although there is still room for improvement, being able to aggregate different types of RSS such as images, videos, audio, and social media into their respective views is already quite appealing. The charm of RSS, I believe many friends understand, combined with Follow's lists, following other users, and Trending features, makes discovering quality RSS sources much easier. Following GitHub project Releases / Stars / Issues also allows for timely updates on project dynamics, while the combination of official RSS sources and Twitter lets me not miss content and mark it as read with one click.
Little Surprises in Interaction#
Follow often surprises me with little details, such as the directory jump animation that impressed me the most at first, along with countless other small details. I even wrote a tweet praising it early on, and I'll mention it again here.
The first impression when opening it is that the interaction is incredibly smooth, and the animations are seamless. If you don’t like the animations, you can turn some off in the settings.
My favorite features are the Action, AI summaries, and the waterfall display of images www
(P1) Pictures collects subscriptions related to images. I used to struggle with too many artists I followed on P Station, often unable to finish the works I followed, but this solved my problem hhhh. I can directly open the original link and give a like if I see something I like w
(P2) The experience of reading blogs in Articles is also surprising, especially the design of the directory, where the title of a small chapter turns into a progress bar while scrolling. Wow, what a detail!
(P3) The timeline feature in Social is very comfortable; I use it to subscribe to Twitter and TG channels.
(P4) Videos allow subscribing to B Station video updates, which suits me as I struggle to organize my B Station follows.
In the article A Brief Discussion on the Design Concepts in Follow, many design philosophies of the developers are explained, which is also worth reading.
List#
When the list feature of Follow was first launched, I experienced it immediately. Although there were some minor issues at the beginning, the current experience is very smooth. While there may still be some details to perfect for perfectionists (such as sorting features), Follow's current performance as a nascent product has already made me quite satisfied. During my browsing, I discovered various weekly lists, news lists, and quality lists, feeling that there will be more and more channels to discover excellent content in the future.
I created an image list and used my self-hosted reverse proxy. When I encounter images I like, I also click in to give the artist a like.
This image list has also received a lot of love from friends, which makes me happy.
Automation Action#
With Actions, you can filter out some distracting noise from Twitter retweets and replies, as well as filter out unwanted ads, and set rules for rewriting, automatic translation, and new content notifications.
For example, this is a Block Action for Twitter replies and retweets, which can filter out Twitter replies and retweets.
I won't show the Block Action for filtering ads; a regex will suffice: (block keyword 1|block keyword 2|block keyword 3)
User, Discovery Page, and Trending#
At the top of the article, you can see the users currently reading this article, and you can click on their avatars to peek at their subscription sources, discovering many quality RSS sources you may not have followed. This is truly a great idea (if you don’t want to be seen, you can set your subscriptions to private).
The discovery page can be accessed through the plus sign next to the avatar, where you can add subscriptions and search for subscriptions. Recently, Follow also updated a feature to create an inbox, allowing you to browse in the article view after establishing an inbox. You can also receive submissions in Follow.
On the discovery page, the far right shows Trending, displaying the hottest RSS sources, lists, and popular users. You can enter user profiles to view their publicly subscribed sources, and I look forward to a random Trending feature in the future.
Content Browsing View & Preview#
In terms of reading and browsing RSS, the Articles view is quite versatile for most RSS information. Below, I will briefly discuss the experiences of various views.
Article View#
First is the Article view, which is the default and most commonly used view, suitable for reading blogs, articles, news, etc. It supports images, videos, audio, and more, with smooth directory jumps, reading progress bars, and automatic video playback.
When reading English blogs, the built-in AI summary combined with my own automated translation Action, along with immersive translation, I would call it a killer feature:
When encountering good articles, you can click Star to directly bookmark them, which can serve as a way to save for later (I also saw in the issues that a "read later" feature is being planned).
Did you notice the "Tip" and "Verified Subscription" options in the right-click menu? These two are unique to Follow. Tips can be used to support authors, and Verified Subscription allows you, as the author of this RSS, to get verified. Once verified, a verified icon will appear, allowing others to tip you (similar to B Station coins).
There are three ways to verify; as long as you are the owner of this RSS, you won’t have trouble getting verified. The current version of the verification method is shown in the image:
Social Media View#
This view is suitable for viewing social RSS, such as Twitter and B Station updates, supporting video, audio, images, etc., arranged in a timeline format.
For example, some real-time news channel-related RSS:
I found that this view is also quite suitable for posting updates about certain shows:
Picture View#
This view is suitable for viewing image-related RSS, such as P Station, Unsplash, etc. It supports video, audio, images, and more, with waterfall and grid layouts, image viewers, and filtering out non-image information. It is also very suitable for designers to collect material inspiration, with a compact arrangement, and hovering over images reveals original text information.
A typical example is the Jackywine 21 Designer List, which collects information sources from active designers.
This view also serves the purpose of subscribing to various resource collection RSS, such as various cloud storage and resource sites, making it convenient to collect various resources, with detailed descriptions available upon clicking.
Video View#
This view primarily subscribes to video-related RSS, such as Youtube, B Station, etc., with RSS feeds arranged in a grid format. Videos can be played directly on hover, but playing on the source site will be clearer and increase view counts. I like to subscribe to frequently updated feeds and occasionally watch videos I want to see, as well as videos I definitely don’t want to miss. However, these original video sites can often be overlooked.
You can see that B Station often has risk control, but if you check it once a day, it’s manageable. For particularly important feeds, I will use my self-hosted RSSHub.
Audio View#
Since I don’t often listen to podcasts, I mainly look at text content. However, for those who need podcasts, you can subscribe to sources like Xiaoyuzhou, and the built-in player allows for speed adjustment, fast forward, and rewind.
Notification View#
This view is arranged like the article view. Currently, I think it would be useful to set all RSS feeds in this view to notifications in Actions.
This way, you can subscribe to some important RSS feeds in this view, such as updates on frameworks, new routes on RSS, special concerns, etc., without having to search in other views.
Areas for Improvement#
Next, let’s discuss some areas for improvement and traditional shortcomings.
- The traditional shortcomings of RSS include high latency and frequent risk control issues with official instances. This can be alleviated by self-hosting RSSHub and changing the baseURL of the official instance, which I have seen mentioned in the issues.
- It is still in the early beta stage, and most developers are Mac users, so the Windows client experience may not be timely. However, the web version is still very stable.
- In the early days, Follow could be read directly on the mobile web version. I don’t know why they later imposed a width restriction, not allowing viewing below 1024px, saying that a mobile app is planned (I personally feel that the restriction could be relaxed; it doesn’t have to be so strict, which is a bit disappointing). However, since I usually view it on PC, it’s okay. I think waiting for the app to come out will be a killer feature.
- There is still room for improvement in functionality, such as more sorting, filtering, preview views, statistical data, cross-platform experiences, etc. I see that the official team is continuously planning, and the development speed is impressive.
- Currently, there is a limit on the number of subscription sources!! I tried to import hundreds of B Station follows at once, and it hit the limit, so it’s better to be selective and subscribe to quality sources. Normal usage is unlikely to hit the limit (inoreader also has this, and I hope there will be other means to lift the limit in the future).
- Easily Addictive: Since using Follow, I have checked in for 45 days without missing a day; it feels like an addiction. It’s hard not to check the feed flow every day (escape).
- To be continued...
Conclusion#
You can read the article How Follow Reshaped My Information Input System, as many of the feelings expressed in it are what I want to convey.
Actually, this article would have been better to post during the public beta; otherwise, it might be seen as teasing. But I can’t wait; good things should be praised. Follow, please hurry up with the public beta~ (And when can the mobile version be launched? That would be perfect.)