Categorized | Announcements & News

Big Changes In The NewsGator RSS World

Posted on 30 July 2009 by


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My search for the “perfect” RSS reading system just got a bit more complicated… and that’s a good thing.

Newsgator has just announced that its consumer applications will soon be working with… you guessed it… Google Reader. The plan is to have Google Reader become the online companion to and integrate with FeedDemon and NetNewsWire.

This is great news as it promises to merge a superb desktop application, NetNewsWire with the power of Google Reader. I, for one, can’t wait to try it.

There’s much more to the news. To read the entire release just click on “More”…

The full announcement…

You spoke and we listened: in response to customer demand, NewsGator’s best-of-breed consumer RSS applications now work with Google Reader. Google Reader will become the online companion to and the synchronization platform for our award-winning RSS reader applications – FeedDemon and NetNewsWire.

In conjunction with this announcement, NewsGator is making changes to several of its consumer RSS Readers. NewsGator will continue to support all its individual end-user applications for enterprise customers. However, NewsGator will continue to develop and support only a sub-set of these applications for free consumer use. FeedDemon and NetNewsWire have new versions for consumers that we encourage you to download as soon as possible. NewsGator’s other individual end-user applications will not continue to be supported for free consumer users after August 31, 2009. Again, all of NewsGator’s individual end-user applications will continue to be supported for paying Enterprise customers.

As part of this transition, NewsGator Online users will need to migrate to Google Reader by August 31, 2009. In addition, NewsGator will no longer support the free versions of NewsGator Inbox, NewsGator Go!, and NewsGator’s RSS features (Shared Clipping Feed, Blogroll, Ratings, Headlines, Browser Toolbar, and Desktop Notifier). NewsGator will also continue to support FeedDemon (for Windows) and NetNewsWire (for Mac and iPhone) for all customers – free or paid. If you have questions as to whether or not you qualify as a paying enterprise customer, please contact your account manager.

With these product changes, we recommend that you take the following actions (to assist you, we have a list of recommendations, step-by-step transition instructions, and informative FAQs on our website):

  • FeedDemon – you may continue to use your current version (synchronization won’t be supported after August 31, 2009). However, we recommend that you download the latest version of FeedDemon and sign-up for a Google Readeraccount for synchronization. Please refer to our transition instructions for assistance.
  • NetNewsWire for Mac – you may continue to use your current version (synchronization won’t be supported after August 31, 2009). However, we recommend that you download the latest version of NetNewsWire and sign-up for a Google Reader account for synchronization. Please refer to our transition instructions for assistance.
  • NetNewsWire for iPhone Customers – a mobile RSS Reader requires synchronization and a new version of NetNewsWire for iPhone that supports synchronization with Google Reader will be available soon. We will notify you when it is available so that you can download the latest version of NetNewsWire and sign-up for a Google Reader account prior to August 31, 2009.
  • NewsGator Inbox – we will no longer support NewsGator Inbox nor release new versions of the product. You may, however, continue to use your current version (synchronization won’t be supported after August 31, 2009). Please refer to our transition instructions for assistance.
  • NewsGator Online – NewsGator Online will not be available after August 31, 2009. Please transition to Google Reader by August 31, 2009. Please refer to our transition instructions for assistance.
  • NewsGator Go! – NewsGator Go! will not be available after August 31, 2009. Please transition to a new mobile RSS Reader by August 31, 2009. We have included alternate RSS Reader recommendations in the transition instructions on our website.
  • NewsGator’s Shared Clipping Feed – this feature will not be available after August 31, 2009. Google Reader will now provide you with this capability. Please see our FAQs for more information.
  • Blogroll, Ratings and/or Headlines – these services will not be available after August 31, 2009. Please remove these components from any blog or web site. Please see our FAQs for more information.
  • Browser Toolbar or the Desktop Notifier – these features will not work after August 31, 2009, nor will we offer new versions of these features. Please see our FAQs for more information.

Bottom line for you: We keep improving our FeedDemon and NetNewsWire applications, and you now can sync with and use the web based RSS reader you’ve been asking for. We’ve been working with the Google team to make these changes as smooth as possible, and they are thrilled to welcome all NewsGator users to the Reader family.

For more information, check out our blog or Google’s blog.

This post was written by:

- who has written 2793 posts on Gear Diary.

Having a father who was heavily involved in early laser and fiber-optical research, Dan grew up surrounded by technology and gadgets. Dan’s father brought home one of the very first video games when he was young and Dan remembers seeing a “pre-release” touchtone phone. (When he asked his father what the “#” and “*” buttons were his dad said, “Some day, far in the future, we’ll have some use for them.”) Technology seemed to be in Dan’s blood but at some point he took a different path and ended up in the clergy. His passion for technology and gadgets never left him. +Dan Cohen

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  • Carly Z

    I’m still a bit miffed about this…mostly because for the longest time I wasn’t impressed with the UI of Google Reader, and I liked Newsgator better. But I’ve been fiddling with Google Reader all afternoon, and now that I have a better handle on it I’m not as annoyed.

    Just hope it doesn’t get blocked at work…I actually use RSS to follow several work-related sites at once, and Newsgator was never a problem. But Google is more likely to set off the web filter.

  • http://twitter.com/feiry/status/2947076738 feiry

    oh no! glad not implement newsgator sync to iNews yet… Big Changes In The NewsGator RSS World http://bit.ly/FvPz8 from @iNewsApp

  • Carly Z

    Ok, so now that i’ve had some time to get going on google reader, it’s quite nice.

    My main issue is that Newsgator kind of bungled this a bit. They were great at walking through how to import your Newsgator feeds to Google Reader, but the beta of FeedDemon (and possibly NetNewsWire, I haven’t checked on my macbook yet) don’t support syncing with Google Reader. So in my transition, I either need to maintain my RSS feeds at Newsgator AND Google Reader until the desktop apps are updated, or just walk away from the desktop apps until the end of the month.

    You’d think they’d have everything all set together before they did this, since this is an internal timeline and not something where there is external pressure. Bah.