A Tease Before I Leave

I'm taking the week off, but before I skip town I want to leave a teaser of what's coming in the next FeedDemon. In addition to the features mentioned in the previous teaser, there are a couple of other noteworthy additions.

Synchronized News Bins

FeedDemon's ability to synchronize with NewsGator Online means that your subscriptions are available on any computer you use. But in the past your news bins have not been synchronized, so items you added to a news bin were only available on the computer you were using when you added them. As you can see from the screen shot below, this limitation is finally being addressed:

Oh, and there's a nice bonus feature here: you'll also be able to share your news bins as RSS feeds, so others can subscribe to them.

Who's Linking Here?

One of my favorite things about FeedDemon is that it's a hybrid reader which combines the power of a desktop application with the data mobility of a web-based one. This also means that FeedDemon isn't limited to showing only desktop-based data - it can also show aggregated data from NewsGator Online.

The next release of FeedDemon takes advantage of this by adding a "Who's linking here" icon () next to each article. Clicking this icon shows you who's talking about that article, with a separation between links within your subscriptions and links in everyone's subscriptions (in other words, you can see the feeds you're subscribed to which link to that article, as well as feeds that everyone in NewsGator Online is subscribed to which link to that article). Here's a screen shot:

This feature is especially handy in FeedDemon's "Popular Topics" personal memetracker, because it enables seeing who else is linking to the most popular articles in the feeds you read (a great way to find interesting new sites).

PS: Expect a beta release next month!

Comments

[Andrew Herron]

Sweet, it's a linkblog built right into FD. You're eating into the Google Reader features one by one ;)

[Michael]

Any change that flagged items will be synched some day as well?

[Stuart Bruce - Wolfstar]

Fantastic syncrhonised news bins with the ability to share as a feed will make my life so much easier. The only question now is will the beta be soon enought, before my project launches.

[Thomas Stache]

Michael, flags are already synchronized. I use it all the time. You should be able to flag news items in FeedDemon on one computer, which makes them appear flagged in other FeedDemons, at least as long as the article is still in the source feed (this restriction could be obsolete, NG was working on that).
I don't think Newsgator Online knows about FeedDemons flagged items though...

[Nick Bradbury]

Thomas is correct - flags are already synchronized. And this is no longer limited to items still in the source feed.

[John Yedinak]

Nice, cant wait to try it.

[Edmond Varwijk]

Hope you will sync the watches also. regards Edmond

[Dave Gray]

Nick, I was so pleased to hear that you'll be including sync'ed News Bins. I have a podcast and atm rely on a bookmarking service to share links for the show. It is labour intensive, non-linear and a pita to say the least. I am hoping that the ability for my co-host to subscribe to a News Bin will eliminate the need to use anything else. You just saved me about 2 hours work a week... and some.

Basically it turns the collection of stories and links into a week long process of collaboration and that is (was) on my wish list for FD. I actually requested this in the forums when the question was asked as to what we wanted as far as features go. I thought I had zero chance!

Thank you FD coding god... love your work.

Funny but a side note: one of the main reasons I "can't get a Mac is FeedDemon... one app that I could not live without. Sure I could run it in Parallels but then why get a Mac? I live in FD!!