NewsGator for Outlook
Posted by Marc Orchant, 6/6/04 at 10:43:00 AM.
My aggregator of choice is NewsGator. I've tried many alternatives, including web-based options like Bloglines and mobileRSS, desktop applications like klipfolio and FeedDeemon, and the local browser-based RSS reader in Pluck. They all fall short for me. Why?
I live in Outlook. It's the first app I fire up and the last one I exit. All of my important information is stored there. It's the place where incoming information about my work and play arrives. So, for me, it's the most natural destination for my RSS feeds to show up as well. Reading feeds like I read e-mail seems like the most natural way to review the (relatively) massive amount of information I receive every day (about 160 subs at the moment).
I use a Tablet PC and reading RSS feeds in slate mode is especially efficient. I use the scroll stick on my Toshiba M205 to move from item to item and have mapped the HW button just below to the Delete key. So I can get into a really rhythm: read-delete-read-next-read, etc.
I'm also a big fan of Lookout - an extraordinarily useful add-in for Outlook that indexes everything and allows 1-second searches for whatever I need to retrieve - including the RSS data I've chosen to save. I can do a simple search on author or subject, or I can get quite sophisticated with Boolean searches to narrow down my results. x1, a popular desktop app for system-wide searches offers a similar capability when used with NewsGator although it currently lacks the Boolean search features.
Two more killer features of NewsGator are delivered if you pony up for the NewsGator Online Services (NGOS) subscription option. The first is topic-related searches. Yes, I know you can do this for free via Feedster or Technorati but NGOS allows me to build searches based on either keywords or URLs and delivers each to a separate folder in Outlook. The second NGOS benefit is that, on the rare occasion when I'm out and about and have the time to read my RSS subs, I can do so from my WiFi-enabled Pocket PC or any web-connected PC and the content is synced with my Outlook source - that is, I'm only presented with stuff I haven't yet read.
For heavy Outlook users like me, NewsGator is and outstanding choice.
Marc Orchant
The Office Weblog
The Tablet PC Weblog
