Headline is a distinctive-looking newsreader for OS X that offers a different reading experience than you might be used to from popular RSS apps like NetNewsWire or Newsfire. To maintain a small desktop footprint, Headline lists stories in a compact one-column layout that can be quickly sorted using a dropdown. It displays the full stories using a slick, Quick-Look-like effect, taking advantage of Core Animation. And now this reader has reached its 1.0 release!
Headline definitely has potential, but with its major competitors switching to a free model, you're going to have to really fall in love with its unique UI to pay the $20 pricetag. That said, we do really like the minimalism of Headline, and it would be nice to other newsreaders develop a mini-mode that mimics the one-column layout. You might also want to check out Headline if you subscribe to podcasts via RSS, but aren't a fan of iTunes, as Headline can play them inline.
Are you bored of reading news sites that all look the same, or staring at rows and rows of headlines in your RSS reader? MSNBC has something you might want to see. The new Spectra Visual Newsreader grabs MSNBC stories, color-coded by category, and sends them flying around your screen like index cards in a wind tunnel. Maybe you don't want to get your news this way all the time, but it's fun to play with.
Spectra has three modes: you can put it on automatic and let the camera fly around your floating news stories, or you can leave the camera in place, watching the stories spin. The third mode is the most interesting: it lets you use a webcam to manipulate the stories with "human interaction." Unfortunately, it didn't want to cooperate with a MacBook's built-in iSight.
We don't want to completely write off Spectra, because it's a lot of fun, but it seems like MSNBC put a lot of work into a cool toy that doesn't do too much. Webcam integration in browsing is definitely an interesting trend to explore, so it would be great to see that feature working on more platforms. For now, though, we'll just get our news via RSS.
When popular Mac RSS reader NetNewsWire started offering the full version of its software for free, there was plenty of speculation that its competitors would follow suit. Not too surprisingly, NewsFire, another top player in the OS X newsreader market, is now free too. Its features are competitive with those offered by NetNewsWire, and it's UI is arguably the best out there.
Despite having a great product, it's probably a good thing that David Watanabe is now releasing NewsFire for free. Last year, we reported on the woes of the product registration system for Newsfire -- customers could activate the software with just an e-mail address, and they had some unfriendly communication with the developer when he thought they were using it on too many machines. Now that NewsFire is free, Watanabe can keep his product competitive with NetNewsWire without having to deal with the registration issue.
If you need a full-featured RSS reader, but you don't like the looks of NetNewsWire, you should definitely give NewsFire a shot. The price is right!
Any child of the 80's will recall Max Headroom, the stuttering talking head that made fun of movie stars and politicians, as a pop-culture hallmark of the decade. Of course, Max Headroom is an entirely forgettable character, so most children of the 90's and later just say "huh?" when you mention his name.
But for all you Headroom fans, and for those of us who just like our computers to behave more like people and less like programmed silicon, Noodle Reader offers some old-fashioned talking-head fun. The program is an RSS reader for Mac OS X that audibly reads the news to you--using the Mac OS's speech synthesis. Unlike other readers, though, Noodle also gives you a certifiably creepy 3D talking head to do the reading, just like good ol' Max. And if you get tired of the built-in "actors" that Noodle supplies, you can download more.
If you're like us, you probably spend a significant portion of your day with Google Reader or your favorite RSS reader open. But sometimes it's nice to see pages in their original context. For example, if you want to see comments other readers have left on a blog entry, there's pretty much no way to do that with most feed readers.
That's where fav.or.it comes in. The web service is still pre-private beta, but the goal is to create a Google Reader like RSS interface with support for comments.
Here's how it works. You read Download Squad or some other blog or news site (don't ask us why) using the fav.or.it. You find an article that you want to comment on and you can leave a message without leaving the page. You can also read comments left by other fav.or.it users.
There are also tools that allow web publishers to integrate fav.or.it with their sites, which pushes fav.or.it comments to the original web page. It's a little less clear whether the same tools will allow comments left on the original site to show up on fav.or.it.
On the post where you told us what RSS reader you liked and why, there is a great newsreader that I was a little curious if anyone would mention but no one did. NewsIsFree.com is a site that offers excellent feed reading and aggregation for free. I was impressed with the amount of features and how usable this site is. Since I like to stick with something quick and dirty, this site is a bit too busy for me, but you may find it perfect. It offers the ability to post blog entries from news feeds you find right on the site. There is even a news clippings page to help you organize your clippings. Some of these services are part of the paid subscription, but it looks like Newisfree.com has a lot of potential to be a new favorite reader.
Nowsy is feed reader that lets you add an unlimited number of feeds as panes on a personalized home page-style page. It has a clean, uncluttered interface but otherwise does little that will blow anyone away or make them switch from Netvibes or Google Personalized Homepage. For newshounds, however, it does have once nice feature: You can search among your feed items. Typing in a search term will filter your feed items so that only those items matching your search will show up. Though most decent feed readers have search or filter features, some users will prefer having their search results in this format. Nowsy also lets you create multiple pages, so you could have your feeds broken up by topic, etc. Nowsy lets you play around with most of its features without registration (via a cookie), but if you want to make sure your preferences are never lost you'll need to register.
For all you OSX users out there using NetNewsWire: I've found a repository of tips, scripts and additional styles - and it's been right under our noses at Ranchero's resources page. They actually have an RSS feed set up, with individual feeds available for updates on each category of resources. It's a pretty nice setup, and there's a ton of stuff here I've never seen before. Sending feeds from Firefox to NetNewsWire for subscribing, adding headlines to del.icio.us or inserting them in an Adium chat - it's all there.
Any child of the 80's will recall Max Headroom, the stuttering talking head that made fun of movie stars and politicians, as a pop-culture hallmark of the decade. Of course, Max Headroom is an entirely forgettable character, so most children of the 90's and later just say "huh?" when you mention his name. 
On the post where you told us what RSS reader you liked and why, there is a great newsreader that I was a little curious if anyone would mention but no one did. NewsIsFree.com is a site that offers excellent feed reading and aggregation for free. I was impressed with the amount of features and how usable this site is. Since I like to stick with something quick and dirty, this site is a bit too busy for me, but you may find it perfect. It offers the ability to post blog entries from news feeds you find right on the site. There is even a news clippings page to help you organize your clippings. Some of these services are part of the paid subscription, but it looks like Newisfree.com has a lot of potential to be a new favorite reader.
Nowsy is feed reader that lets you add an unlimited number of feeds as panes on a personalized home page-style page. It has a clean, uncluttered interface but otherwise does little that will blow anyone away or make them switch from Netvibes or Google Personalized Homepage. For newshounds, however, it does have once nice feature: You can search among your feed items. Typing in a search term will filter your feed items so that only those items matching your search will show up. Though most decent feed readers have search or filter features, some users will prefer having their search results in this format. Nowsy also lets you create multiple pages, so you could have your feeds broken up by topic, etc. Nowsy lets you play around with most of its features without registration (via a cookie), but if you want to make sure your preferences are never lost you'll need to register.
For all you OSX users out there using NetNewsWire: I've found a repository of tips, scripts and additional styles - and it's been right under our noses at Ranchero's resources page. They actually have an RSS feed set up, with individual feeds available for updates on each category of resources. It's a pretty nice setup, and there's a ton of stuff here I've never seen before. Sending feeds from Firefox to NetNewsWire for subscribing, adding headlines to del.icio.us or inserting them in an Adium chat - it's all there.
