Online business Toolkit

NewsGator review

7.5

Editors' Rating

Jeff Bertolucci CNET

Published: 19 Jul 2004

NewsGator 2.0 is a unique newsreader, in that it integrates with Microsoft's Outlook, thereby allowing Outlook users to browse newsfeeds from within the same program that delivers their daily email.

This $29 (~£15.50) program has a helpful setup wizard that simplifies installation. In our test, setup involved the extra step of installing Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1, a system upgrade required for Outlook/NewsGator integration. Since NewsGator's setup program automatically downloaded and installed the 23MB Framework setup file, the extra step extended the overall configuration time by only 10 minutes.

Unfortunately, getting started with NewsGator requires a bit more tweaking than with standalone newsreaders such as Awasu, FeedDemon and RSSReader. For instance, the program comes with only two preset subscriptions -- both of which deliver NewsGator product news. By comparison, Pluck, which plugs into Internet Explorer, comes with dozens of ready-to-read feeds. Fortunately, adding an RSS feed in NewsGator is easy, thanks to the program's Feed Wizard, which allows you to browse a directory of popular feeds, from technology-oriented blogs to mainstream news content from the BBC, the New York Times the Washington Post, and other popular sources. NewsGator automatically retrieves newsfeeds every hour -- a default setting that you can change easily (to every 15 minutes, for instance) via the NewsGator menu on the Outlook toolbar.

NewsGator uses a two-pane interface. The upper pane lists the latest headlines from a particular site, and the bottom pane provides a brief, one- or two-sentence summary of each story. Unlike competing readers, however, the bottom pane doesn't function as a full-fledged browser. To view a feed, you click its link in the bottom pane, which launches the piece inside your default Windows Web browser.

For an additional cost, NewsGator users can subscribe to premium services, which range in cost from $5.95 to $19.95 (~£3 - £11) per month. These fee-based extras include the ability to synchronise your NewsGator subscriptions across multiple PCs -- a feature that Internet Explorer-based Pluck provides for free. You can download a trial version of NewsGator here.