Just like any other self-respecting techie, I'm subscribed to dozens of RSS feeds - from technology and sports news sites, to popular blogs, and Google news alerts on a whole host of keywords, for both personal and work use. One of the first tasks each morning after opening up the laptop is to click on NetNewsWire and scroll through the night's news until I'm caught up.However, even with this diligence, by the time I get to the office and log in, there are dozens more new stories that have popped up on RSS. I've synchronized my work and home computers through NewsGator, meaning I don't have to read the same stories twice, but it doesn't mean I have the luxury of sitting back while the world revolves around me. In fact, just in the time it took to write these two paragraphs, a simple refresh picked up 27 new articles for perusal, boosting the 89 new items at the time of the below screenshot to a more robust 116.
NetNewsWire In Action
The benefits of RSS are obvious - instead of looking for news and information, it comes to me. Combined with alerts from Google News, I can track for news coverage on my company and the competition - instantly, always staying a step ahead of colleagues, the PR firm, and others not utilizing the services. Even better, the latest edition of NetNewsWire now lets users click and view the stories inside the application, instead of opening up to a new Web browser. I'd say I now read a significant percentage of my browsed articles within NetNewsWire instead of Safari now, and that number is ever-increasing, as the sites I regularly visit are supplanted through their feeds.
But I think I may just have reached the level where I don't want to add much more. If I do add regularly-updated feeds, I give some thought as to removing others that offer high quantity, but not high quality. (I'm looking at you, InformationWeek and News.com!) If you're not at this stage yet, give NetNewsWire a spin. And if you're on a PC instead of a Mac, NewsGator also offers FeedDemon, which is probably good, but not nearly as fun. You should just get a Mac anyway.
Listening to ''Columbia'', by Paul Van Dyk (Play Count: 3)