NewsGator Sets RSS Readers Free - Will Desktop Readers Make a Comeback?
NewsGator, which offers the most complete end-to-end suite of RSS reader tools on the market and possibly the most widely used offline readers (NetNewsWire and FeedDemon), today announced that its most popular products would be set free. As in beer. According to NewsGator founder and CTO Greg Reinacker, the reason for going free is simple: "What we’re working to do is to saturate the market with our clients [...] we want our clients to become ubiquitous."
But perhaps the most interesting reason NewsGator made the decision to go free, according to Reinacker, is the company's desire to collect attention data. "Basically, by using your data, in combination with aggregate data from other users, we can deliver a better experience for everyone," said Reinacker.
As we reported in October, NewsGator joined the APML Workgroup. APML, the Attention Profiling Markup Language, is an attention data spec that "allows users to share their own personal Attention Profile in much the same way that OPML allows the exchange of reading lists between News Readers." Attention data is not the most easy concept to grasp, but to quote Marshall Kirkpatrick from an earlier article on ReadWriteWeb, the simple explanation is that, "Attention Data consists of all the information online about what you read, write, share and consume." (For more on why you'd want to collect that data, see Alex Iskold's overviews of attention data.)
NewsGator is clearly serious about collecting attention data and using it to enhance the news reading experience. Reinacker said today that rather than just integrate APML into their feed readers, NewsGator plans to "implement an endpoint in our online platform where you (and only you!) can always access your personal APML data." The data will be aggregated from your usage across the entire NewsGator product universe.
The company hopes that by going free, they will attract more users to their reader (I am a recent convert, myself), which in turn will give them a greater pool from which to gather attention data and build stronger tools that rely on that data. But a poll we ran about a year ago revealed that 55% of ReadWriteWeb readers use web-based RSS readers (71% if you included personal start pages and portals). Just 18% still used dedicated offline RSS readers.
With today's news, we've decided to run that poll again. How much of an uphill climb does NewsGator have now to gain marketshare for their desktop readers? Will free desktop readers perhaps help win back some old users who have defected to online readers? Please share your thoughts in the comments below and participate in the poll.
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Great move Newsgator! It's hard to compete with free offerings like Goog Reader and Bloglines. It's a sophisticated product range that Newsgator has, so I'm sure it's not too late for them to make inroads in the Reader market.
Posted by: Richard MacManus
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January 9, 2008 1:15 PM
well, yeah, so i will get me reflected back to me, you're going to enhance my experience, yeah, sure, but what you don't know is that my experience is already enhanced, naturally, and all you can do is fine-tune the corral you want to herd me into... thanks
and you know something? i like surprises and serendipity, think your attention profile algorithm is up to that degree of subtlety? you going to turn me into a mass-market consumerbot? sell me to the highest bidder?
somehow i think the only enhancement you are really interested in is your own, sorry about that
Posted by: gregory | January 9, 2008 1:35 PM
1. I wonder why people use desktop RSS readers. In general, they offer the same functionality as their web-based cousins, but you have to run a different program that uses memory.
2. The reason for my using such a reader, the old Shapreader, is exactly that it offers a quite important extra functionality, by popping up windows with the current news. It's truely a different way using RSS to stay informed, for example, with daily news and comments to posts I'm interested in, with a relatively high time resolution, ie. I know I'm interested in within 5 minutes.
But surprisingly, most readers don't allow pop-ups. And quite much people use (independenly from me) this old, open source reader only for this reason.
Posted by: KGyST
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January 9, 2008 1:57 PM
I think desktop RSS readers are dinosaurs. At one point, I was a huge FeedDemon fan but its appeal started to wane as it was tied to one machine (There was a synchronization option but it was too complex). And when, Web-based RSS readers came along, I jumped on the bandwagon.
Posted by: Mark Evans | January 9, 2008 2:13 PM
I like desktop readers for these reasons:
1. a local copy saved in case posts are removed or changed
2. more responsiveness than web readers when reading 1k+ feeds, Google Reader doesn't work for me with that many
3. Offline reading, works well on a plane
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick | January 9, 2008 2:50 PM
One of the main reasons I use a desktop reader is that I generally have so many tabs open in Firefox (20-30 when working and researching/tracking stories) that the Google Reader tab gets lost in the shuffle.
Posted by: Josh Catone | January 9, 2008 3:01 PM
Why use it, when there are so many much cooler clients like google reader or the new mindity (www.mindity.com)
greetings
Posted by: Russel Ridick | January 9, 2008 3:17 PM
Great news for everyone and great leadership in APML implementation from Newsgator. Well done to Nick and Greg and the rest of the team.
Posted by: Chris Saad | January 9, 2008 4:54 PM
My take on it is they may have just made the change in the nick of time. The thing I'm seeing become increasingly valuable for me when using Google reader is link blogging, and communities that are springing up around link blogs.
I could export my opml and read the feeds I follow pretty much anywhere, but the linkblog feels quite a bit stickier. I'm not just reading feeds, but quasi-publishing the things I find interesting. Combine that with FriendFeed, ReadBurner and some facebook integration, and I almost feel locked in. I can't very well update my Google Reader linkblog from FeedDemon.
Posted by: Todd McKinney | January 9, 2008 9:55 PM
RSS Readers. RSS and Atom files provide news updates from a website in a simple form for your computer.
Posted by: Sarkipedia Edit | January 15, 2008 1:39 AM