When reading your RSS feeds, do you prefer a local application versus one that is online-only? If so, look no further than ShareFire. Besides being platform-independent (courtesy of Adobe Air), it is also completely free and open-source. It was created with article sharing in mind, as its name implies. According to its creators, Christian Cantrell and Dan Koestler, this was a priority.

Additional features include a keyword-based notification system (which they call Smart Topics), posts arranged by topic, a switchable viewer between RSS and live web, and support for over a dozen foreign languages! You can also easily import and export OPML files you have generated from other utilities such as Google Reader or Toluu.

We found ShareFire to be on-par with other standalone feed readers when it comes to displaying and managing feeds. However, its built-in sharing links make it a cut above most basic readers and the alert system for keywords could come in very useful. One bug we did notice is that lack of any way of deleting a Smart Topic once created, and its somewhat heavy memory usage, even with only a few feeds in the queue.

More information can be found on Adobe's Air blog here.

For their part, YouTube isn't accepting the ban without a fight. Today, YouTube told the Associated Press they would challenge the US Defense Department's decision. "Watching or uploading online video does use bandwidth and can slow or tie up a network, but [CEO Chad] Hurley expressed doubt that soldiers' use of YouTube could have any real effect on the military's massive network," reported the AP.

"We want to protect the [YouTube] community from being exposed to something violent, but at the same time, we want to educate people on what's happening around the world," Hurley said. "It's hard for us."

Even more baffling to YouTube was the apparent contradiction by the Pentagon, who a couple of weeks ago launched their "boots-on-the-ground" YouTube channel in order to present its own combat videos. In light of this, YouTube was "especially puzzled" by the block, said the AP.

What do you think about the US military's ban on YouTube, MySpace, Hi5, and other social networking and media sites? Do you think YouTube has a chance of getting the block lifted?

Corel is best known for its set of budget office applications, such as WordPerfect, Paint Shop Pro and CorelDraw. Earlier this year it branched into web-connected apps, with the release of WordPerfect Lightning - a desktop word processor/notes tool (20MB download) that allows for content collaboration over the Web. Essentially WordPerfect Lightning consists of four components: the Navigator, the Viewer, Lightning Notes, and the Connector. As explained in a press release in February:

"The Navigator is a central repository for the assembly and organization of content. The Viewer is an all-in-one document reading tool for the fast and simple viewing of documents in Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, or Corel WordPerfect file formats. Lightning Notes is a lightweight word processor and note taking utility that acts as a universal container for ideas, information and images.

The Connector, powered by Joyent (www.joyent.com), is a suite of Web-based applications for teams and small businesses that provides individual users with email, calendars, address books and file storage. These functions are hosted on the Web, enabling team members to share information and collaborate on projects. Users receive 200MB of free online storage, plus shared calendaring, contacts and e-mail functionality."

Also see ZDNet's David Berlind's review from February when it was launched. He summed it up as follows:

"...a note assembler that can take original content that you plug-in or content from Microsoft Word, Wordperfect Office, PDF-formatted documents, or the Web, and remix them together in a lightweight fashion that allows you to not only share the final document locally, but also to an Internet-based document sharing service where (a) you can get at it from another computer running Lightning or (b) someone else you are collaborating with can get at it as well."

What's New

Corel told Read/WriteWeb that "tens of thousands of people" have downloaded and tried WordPerfect Lightning so far. The impending update (which goes live tomorrow morning) will add integration with WordPress, enabling users to repurpose content for their blogs. Corel told us that with Wordpress' open SDK and strong support for images, it makes it easy for Lightning users to blog information they've collected.

In terms of product upgrades, there will be a slick new 'drag and drop' feature allowing users to easily add Web page content (images, text, etc) to their notes. Corel thinks this feature will eliminate "the cumbersome process of cutting and pasting" - this has been one of the most requested features by the Lightning community during the beta. Corel is also adding support for a wide variety of image formats in Lightning notes, making it better for managing graphics and photos.

Finally, WordPerfect Lightning Online Services (a.k.a. the Connector) has added support for VoIP service JAJAH. This enables free and long distance calls over regular phones for subscribers.

Check out the Lightning blog tomorrow morning for a full list of new features.

Corel's Web Office Vision

Corel's long term vision for WordPerfect Lightning is for it to be "a one-stop access point for all your information - someplace where you can perform 80-90% of your most common productivity tasks." But for that to occur, it would pretty much need to replace email. Because that is where office people still do most of their productivity work (even though we know we shouldn't!). But certainly the already extensive functionality in WordPerfect Lightning is a good start towards that lofty 80-90% goal.

It's great to see some of the more traditional productivity software companies like Corel embracing web-based functionality. This is the kind of thing that Microsoft Office will evolve towards, over time - a web-based desktop app that enables collaboration, content aggregation from over the Web, integration with blog platforms, Ajax-like UI features, and other web native functionality. It's a wonder Microsoft hasn't yet come out with a product like WordPerfect Lightning. It leaves the door ajar for Corel to build up an impressive web/desktop productivity suite and possibly, over time, grab some of Microsoft's customers.

Lightning Navigator and Notes

So now Interclue has joined what is a reasonably crowded market - and as yet a market where there is little evidence of profitablity. Browster has already bitten the dust. So what makes Interclue different? Like iReader it is a browser add-on that provides more information about a link, including a text summary of the content. Here is an example:

Interclue is very nicely implemented and it doesn't interfere with my browsing. By default you have to hover over or click the little icon to the right of the link to see the content preview, which is much better (in my view) than automatically popping it up when the user passes their mouse over the link. You can modify this behavior, including hover time. Also there is a lot of handy information packed into the previews - a useful text summary, plus some stats about the web page. It also has a del.icio.us tagcloud and digg count, two very nifty features for web 2.0 savvy users.

The current service is free, but CEO Seth Wagoner says there will be a premium subscription based service too. He says it will make Interclue "3-5 times faster and bring you even more clues per pixel."

Check out the Interclue blog for more info, but also try it out and see what you think. Overall I'm definitely impressed with the implementation of web previews in Interclue, but - as with its competition - it remains to be seen if Interclue gets a steady revenue stream. It is a handy tool, but is it one users will pay for?

A final note, this is a web app that hails from New Zealand (where I live). Nice to see web 2.0 startups beginning to pop up here - there are others I have my eye on too.