feeds

It may be the scaled-down version, but Feed Editor Lite's straightforward interface offers just the right amount of options for creating and managing RSS feeds and podcasts.

The program's wizard to create a new RSS feed gets you off to the right start. The wizard was easy to understand, but also included a help feature to keep you covered. The wizard gives you two options for creating feeds--standard RSS or standard podcast. After that, simply enter a name, brief description, and the source URL in the appropriate field. Once we got all of that information into place, we … Read more

Despite an initially intimidating interface, this RSS feed reader turned out to be very simple to use. Webu launches a no-frills but very functional interface with a series of buttons for adding and deleting news feeds and keywords for narrowing feed hits. Helpful informational windows pop up on first launch to help guide the new user.

This application performed well in our tests, responding promptly to our clicks. It quickly checked selected feeds for our user-defined topics, and adding and deleting feeds and keywords was a snap. We liked that we could choose to check RSS feeds or Web pages, … Read more

An instructional video posted recently by Facebook includes a link that will look familiar to anyone who has ever used the social content aggregation service FriendFeed: a "Like" button.

The video, which describes how to publish feed stories using Facebook Connect, shows the familiar "Like" button tucked between the "Add Comment" and "Read More" buttons. The button, which was spotted by an AllFacebook reader, doesn't seem to be appearing on other Facebook videos. As VentureBeat points out, the video probably includes beta properties for testing purposes, and while it makes sense … Read more

The unobtrusive design of this free Firefox add-on to read Live Bookmarks scored points with us, as did RSS Ticker's easy customization.

The program adds a slender feed bar right below your status bar, but through the Options menu you can choose to place it below your bookmarks toolbar. The Options menu also lets you change the feed update frequency, and the ticker speed. The black on white text was easy to read, and didn't interfere with our Web viewing. Likewise, the scrolling headlines were inconspicuous. We were able to easily add and remove feeds by simply selecting … Read more

ZigTag, a social bookmarking tool that has been in the works for years, has finally launched to the public. Competing with services like Delicious and Ma.gnolia, ZigTag categorizes bookmarks through the use of tags and allows users to share those bookmarks with friends. To set itself apart, ZigTag claims its service is "intelligent" and uses semantic technology to understand the meaning of tags. In essence, ZigTag tags have stated definitions, which the company uses to categorize bookmarks more effectively. ZigTag is available upon registration.

Times Square NYC announced its New Year's Eve footage schedule Monday for … Read more

AP Mobile News Network is one of your better choices for keeping up with the latest news on your iPhone or iPod Touch. This free, easy-to-use application has a gratifyingly responsive interface that gives you quick access to news headlines, photos, and videos.

Headlines are broken down into Top News, Local (you can specify your zip code or use your iPhone's location), Sports, Business, Travel, Politics, and Showbiz, each with further subcategories (for example, baseball, auto racing, hockey, and so on, under Sports) that you choose from a slick, sliding, horizontal navigation bar. It's easy to save stories … Read more

Twitter-to-FriendFeed Contact Sync is a simple, but useful tool to find Twitter buddies who are on FriendFeed. If you're considering FriendFeed, this is a great way to automatically populate your subscriptions list with people you may already be following elsewhere.

It works by tapping into your Twitter friends list and cross-referencing your follows with FriendFeed users. By giving it your FriendFeed nickname and API key (which can be found here), it will provide you with simple one-click subscription buttons that can be clicked without taking you off the page.

In case you're hesitant about giving out your security … Read more

The world is full of feed readers. This one's claim to fame is its portability, but there's more to like than just that aspect.

Portable FeedReader offers a nice interface with three vertical panes--one listing the feeds, the second listing the titles of the selected feeds stories, and the third serving as a viewer. Although the panes width can be changed by clicking and dragging, the viewer pane is a bit narrow to comfortably read a typical Web page story. Our testers preferred the Open in Browser option to actually read a story. Unfortunately, doing so opened a … Read more

Flickr photos, Twitter and Facebook updates, and RSS stories are depicted as rafts floating along a river in Ziibii's creative iPhone app. You can slow or speed the current by flicking the screen in either direction, or pause at any time to delete or select a "raft." If you tire of the free application's aquatic theme, you can switch to list view to get your headlines oriented vertically, then flick left and right to further browse. To read stories from just one source, tap on Filter to select it. We appreciate the ease of posting headlines … Read more