Webware

FeedDemon 3 is ready for public use, after months spent in a beta version that saw a confusing migration from proprietary online syncing to Google Reader.

That rough patch sorted, FeedDemon remains one of the best desktop RSS and Atom feed catchers. This version contains a lengthy list of changes, including greatly enhanced Twitter connectivity, a tweaked interface that's a bit easier to use, and better tagging and sharing.

My Twitter stream in FeedDemon 3.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

FeedDemon has dumped its proprietary synchronization site, Newsgator.com, in favor of syncing with Google Reader. New users won't notice, but older users are likely to lose many unread feeds, since Google can't import feeds with more than 10 unread items. Once synced with Google Reader, unread feeds can again include more than 10 items.

There's also a new, persistent ad placed in the lower-left corner of the interface, and FeedDemon's performance could be a lot better--RAM usage was hefty, and 3GB of RAM didn't prevent occasional program hang-ups.

Twitter feed reading has been baked in because FeedDemon supports authenticated feeds. Hyperlinking and short-URL expansion are automatic, and if you use Twitter as a live news stream, FeedDemon's Twitter link sharing should appeal to you. To set that up, you need to subscribe in FeedDemon to your Twitter feed here.

Tagging, tag clouds, and item sharing get a massive overhaul in FeedDemon 3, with all three features added to the item view and a tag cloud added to the Subscriptions Home view. The interface will look similar to FeedDemon 2.8, but there are many little tweaks to improve its usability.

Flags have been renamed Stars for Google Reader consistency, for example, while the Home page features videos, pictures, and content from your feeds. One smart improvement over Google Reader is that you can view your starred feeds in the folders they came from, instead of in a single "starred items" folder.

We'd like to see performance addressed in future versions, but overall, FeedDemon remains a favorite option for desktop feed management. Let us know your thoughts on the new FeedDemon in the comments below.

So many blogs, so little time. If you feel like the blogosphere is passing you by, check out Regator, a new app that culls the Web's best posts.

An offshoot of the eponymous Web service, Regator (agg-regator, get it?) differs from traditional RSS feed readers in that it doesn't rely on you to choose the blogs you want to follow.

Instead, the app employs "qualified human editors" to bring you "topical, well-written, frequently updated, and relevant" posts. In other words, the cream of the blogosphere crop, at least according to these guys.

You can browse the posts any number of ways, starting with "popular" items from the Web at large or looking within a couple dozen specific topics (from Academics to "What the?").

Regator also provides a full directory of more than 500 topics, so you can really drill into the areas that interest you most. (Beekeeping? Check. Museums? Check.)

TiVo announced Wednesday that it has added hundreds of free Web videos to TiVo Series3, TiVo HD, and TiVo HD XL DVRs. Also, subscribers who are interested in watching video podcasts that they can't find through TiVo's listing can enter RSS feeds manually to watch the show on their TiVo box.

Starting Wednesday, subscribers will be able to watch free video podcasts from several providers, including CBS, Fox, Oprah, and more. (CNET News is published by CBS Interactive, a unit of CBS.) They can watch a single episode or subscribe to all the podcast's shows by opting for a season pass.

TiVo also announced that it will allow users to input video podcast RSS feeds to watch those shows that they can't find on their TiVo Web Video listing.

To do so, subscribers will need to use the "Custom RSS Feeds" option in the "Browse Web Videos" menu. That option will allow them to input a show's RSS feed with their remote. If it's a valid link, they can decide to watch a single episode or subscribe to the feed through Season Pass. They can also watch past episodes.

To maximize the amount of content available to its subscribers, TiVo has provided show producers with guidelines for getting their Web videos ready for the DVR. The shows must be made available through RSS (RSS 2.0 is preferred). The video must also be in H.264 format.

TiVo's inclusion of more video podcasts follows a long line of upgrades the company has made to its platform over the past year. In October, TiVo announced that Netflix streaming was coming to its DVRs. HD content from Amazon's Video on Demand service was added earlier this year. The company even announced plans to bring Blockbuster Video on Demand to subscribers. Now, TiVo subscribers can supplement all that professional content with thousands of Web shows that they might already be enjoying on competing products, like the Apple TV.

TiVo's new Web videos and the option to add custom RSS feeds are available now to TiVo Series3, TiVo HD, and TiVo HD XL owners.

The publisher of popular RSS readers FeedDemon and NetNewsWire is ditching its proprietary online RSS synchronization in favor of Google Reader. Newsgator's eponymous online service will cease on August 31..

Soon, Google Reader will be the only online synchronization option for Newsgator users.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

When the beta version of FeedDemon updated earlier this year with the ability to synchronize to either Newsgator or Google Reader, fans of the program rejoiced. Google Reader synchronization, the company says, was one of the most requested features for the Newsgator desktop clients. They have instructions for users who need to move their feeds to Google.

Google Reader may frustrate some, but it has far more users than Newsgator. Newsgator says that this was the main impetus for ditching the Newsgator synchronization for Google, but it's also using the opportunity to revamp its product line.

Along with Google Reader synchronization for FeedDemon, NetNewsWire, and the NetNewsWire iPhone app, Newsgator will discontinue Newsgator Online, Newsgator Go!, Newsgator Inbox, the Newsgator browser toolbar, and the desktop notifier. Several features in the desktop apps that depended on the proprietary syncing service will also cease to function at the end of August. If you use the blogroll, ratings or headlines features, Newsgator recommends removing them from any Web site they're used on by August 31. The shared clipping feature will transition into Google Reader's analogous feature.

Despite its popularity, one feature that Google Reader doesn't support that Newsgator does is authenticated feeds. For people who used Newsgator solely for that feature, their opprobrium on message boards and in comment threads is palpable. Interestingly, the last answer in the Newsgator transitioning FAQ points to another reason for the switch: a growing emphasis from the company on their enterprise-based business.

Newsgator recommends that all FeedDemon and NetNewsWire readers upgrade to the beta builds before August 31, since only those latest versions contain the Google Reader option. It gave no word on when the beta builds would finish development, but readers who want the current stable builds can get them for Windows and Mac.

Editor's note: This post was amended to reflect a later release date for this app. My6Sense for the iPhone was originally expected to be on the app store Thursday morning, although it remains in Apple's approval process. For the purpose of this review I was using the same version which was installed using a testing provision.

My6Sense, a company that previewed its RSS recommendation technology at the Under the Radar Mobility conference back in late November, is finally ready to get its tools into the hands of users. The company soon plans to release its first native application for mobile phones (currently for the iPhone only), which pulls in RSS feeds and adjusts what it presents based on your reading habits.

To make those adjustments, the product revolves around a machine learning algorithm called "digital intuition." As you read, it slowly builds a profile for recommendations on other items you should check out, and ranks them accordingly.

There are six levels of digital intuition in all. Any time you check for recommendations it updates a small bar that tells you how far along its cold, robot brain is to knowing your deepest reading desires. In the hour or two I spent with the app, I nearly got to level three. Apparently it takes much more browsing than I was willing to give it before it could offer expert recommendations. Nonetheless, after just that short amount of time it was doing a pretty good job pointing me toward articles I did, in fact, want to read.

Feeding frenzy
Finding feeds to begin with is quite easy. You can enter URLs manually, download packs of RSS links that have been curated by My6Sense, or import the news feed from places like Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, and Flickr. It's also got a tool for grabbing your feed collection from other RSS services like Google Reader, My Yahoo, NewsGator, and Netvibes. I just used my feed collection from Google Reader, which was as simple as plugging in the credentials for my Google account. My6Sense was even nice enough to keep all my folders and meticulous feed organization intact.

Now the real heart of the app is feed reading. My6Sense wants you to give up using any other readers, and do everything inside of its app, since that's what makes its recommendation engine tick. This would be fine, except for the fact that the app can get intolerably slow when it comes to loading headlines.

Over a healthy 3G connection it took around 12 seconds to load up a list of just 10 stories. It took even longer to pull in an additional 10 results. And this was just the text--images don't load until you open up a story to read. In comparison, Google Reader in Safari is not... Read More

FeedDemon 3 will synchronize your feeds with Google Reader.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

RSS aggregator FeedDemon and e-mail client Postbox both have released recent updates to their not-quite-ready for prime-time programs.

FeedDemon 3.0.0.20 beta 5a continues to build out the feature set of the popular RSS and Atom feed manager. FeedDemon 3 is shaping up to be a must-grab improvement on the last stable release, version 2.7.

FeedDemon 3 is able to synchronize feeds not only with FeedDemon's own Web site, NewsGator, for online news reading, but it can also talk to Google Reader. I jumped away from Google Reader because at the time it was sluggish and I wanted to get my podcasts out of my music jukebox, but I've always regretted losing the convenience of having my e-mail and my RSS reader online and smoothly talking to one another. Google Reader integration means that users will have more flexibility in how they use the program and should broaden its appeal. Beta 5 synchronizes Google Reader and FeedDemon tags as well as the feeds themselves.

FeedDemon 3 comes with a slight interface refresh, too, although it's mostly done in service to the new features. The aforementioned tagging is new, bringing a bit of modern convenience to those who use keywords. Sharing has been made easier with a new Share icon, and shortened URLs such as bit.ly or TinyURL support mouse-over tooltips now.

This is becoming a must-have security feature as phishing attacks adapt to more pernicious methods, and works well in FeedDemon 3's stronger support for Twitter. Author names, replies, and hashtags are automatically linked, and profile pictures also appear. Fun stats such as how many unread items and how many flagged items you've got are surfaced, too.

If you do decide to try out the FeedDemon beta, back up the current version first. Go to File, Manage Cache, Backup, and create a back up folder to deposit the backups in. Full release notes for v3.0.0.20 beta 5a can be read here.

Postbox beta 12 for Windows and Mac updates the well-received remix of Mozilla's Thunderbird. New features include search suggestions when you're typing and smoother integration of folder search with global search. Switching between the two is now marginally simpler. The inspector pane on the right side of a message has been tweaked, as well. Sender details, image thumbnails and dimensions, and the revamped search options for messages, images, links, and attachments have been rolled into the pane.

Mac users should find better support for native Mac address books and Growl notifications. Firefox 3.0.10 bug-fixes have also been integrated into this version of Postbox.

Postbox beta 12 is a small update overall, but because of the bug- and security-fixes that have been implemented I'd strongly recommend upgrading. Full release notes are here.

iBrowz on the Omnia.

(Credit: CNET)

Until native RSS-reading is perfected on mobile phones, third party newsreaders are often the quickest path to keeping up on headlines. Viigo has been our favorite for Windows Mobile phones to date, but the new application iBrowz beta provides a familiar widget paradigm for subscribing to feeds, and a sharp-looking reader.

Instead of assigning each subscription its own icon, iBrowz groups them by category--under news, tech, and sports thumbnails, for instance. You tap to view the bundle, tap again to see headlines for a news source, and tap a third time to open the story in iBrowz's glossy black reader. A banner ad floats above, and pictures look crisp. Managing subscriptions from the phone is simple, but it's even easier from your account online, where a mouse click is all it takes to add or yank a feed.

While the feed functionality is there, the subscription content is weakened by the limited number of available RSS feeds. More will surely come in the future, especially as iBrowz grows its user base. Third-party developers and publishers are also welcome to add their own. However, those with a particular group of favorites may be frustrated by this modest starter crop. As with most RSS readers, you'll also set a sync schedule. iBrowz's ranges from every thirty minutes to once a day.

There are a few extra touches in iBrowz--e-mailing a story to a friend and tab navigation to get you back to the start screen. iBrowz also does local storage for offline reading (a fact that suggests you might download it to an external storage card rather than to the device memory.)

On the flipside, there's a lot more iBrowz could do, and hopefully will, when it emerges from beta. Bookmarking comes to mind, as do greater organization choices that let you shuffle your feeds within a category, or, better yet, decide to lay them bare on the home screen for quicker access. The subscription content is the app's major stumbling block, especially with rival Viigo letting users subscribe not just to any feed, but to aggregators like Google Reader, too. Still, iBrowz's sophisticated feel gives it hope, and a road map that includes syncing documents from your Windows or Mac computer may yet give it a future edge.

IngBoo is a new service that aggregates RSS feeds and can track topics and keywords across multiple content sites. The service was pitched to me as a tracking tool, but it also serves double duty as a headline reader the likes of Netvibes and My Yahoo. It analyzes each feed to find out how fresh the information is, and will show you with a simple pie graph how often the latest stories came in. You can also preview some of the most recent headlines and click straight to them.

To create alerts you have to use its built-in search tool, which will pick which of its trackers best fits your query. You pick which ones you want, then set the priority for each which affects in what order and how often the service goes through its searches. You can then pick how you want alerts delivered, which includes e-mail, IM, and SMS messages.

IngBoo shows you how fresh a feed is with a pie-chart, and lets you preview the latest headlines before you subscribe.

(Credit: CNET)

Where the service earns its stripes is letting you choose what time of day you want to be alerted when there are new items, which ranges anywhere from real time to just mornings, afternoons, and evenings. You're also able to set aside certain times when you don't want to be disturbed like on nights and weekends, which will control all of your alerts universally. There really aren't enough services that do this, and it's really nice--especially if you've got it set up to deliver SMS alerts.

While simple to use, I prefer Trackle and Alerts.com, both of which offer much more control over sources and per-alert settings, so you can set certain ones to send you real-time alerts, while others are simply provided as a weekly summary. If IngBoo were to add this, it would definitely be more valuable as a tool since you don't always want to get constant alerts for less important topics.

Google has begun work on one much-requested feature of its Chrome browser, the ability to detect when a Web page offers a subscription service through RSS or Atom technology.

Google programmer Finnur Thorarinsson formally marked the RSS support issue as "started" on Wednesday, though the feature is disabled for now.

"The first part of this has been implemented and checked in," Thorarinsson said, referring to the part that discovers when RSS feeds are available on a Web site. The feature is disabled for now, though, because the second part, which will produce a page that lets people actually subscribe to the feed, isn't yet available, he said in his comment about Chrome's RSS support.

When Chrome debuted in September, many often basic features available in rival browsers were missing. Google has been working feverishly to add them, though. A total of 250 people flagged RSS support as being an issue of interest, second only to the Chrome extensions, which 725 people flagged.

Google is working on extensions, too, which will let people customize the browser with features such as ad blocking. Extensions are a popular selling point with Firefox, the second most popular browser after Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Earlier this week, Google programmer Aaron Boodman published a how-to guide for writing Chrome extensions. "Right now extensions can only really contain content scripts, so that is all this doc covers. But we'll be expanding it over time as more features develop," Boodman said in an e-mail announcement of the how-to document.

The document caught the attention of another Googler--Matt Cutts, who oversees Google's efforts to screen Web spam out of search results but who also blogs more broadly. "I'm sure the Chrome team is thinking about ways to add more functionality to extensions, but the current developer version of Chrome already lets you do a lot of neat things," Cutts said in a blog post about using the Chrome extensions framework.

Boodman, though, followed up with a note of caution in a blog post of his own that said Cutts jumped the gun. "There's not much to see yet," he said. "We're working on more toys, and you can bet we'll start blogging when there's something to play with. But not... quite... yet."