I guess by now we all know that NewsGator’s products are all now free. There has been a lot of talk on this subject and Web Worker Daily asked yesterday if it changes anything.
The problem is a preference one for the most part. Most people are used to and prefer using one or the other.
Compound that with the fact that there are so many converts to Google’s Reader, and I just can’t see that this makes much of a difference.
I’ve always used web based readers, and about a month ago, I decided to give a desktop one (FeedDemon at work, NetNewsWire at home and the mobile web app for my iPhone) a try. The problems were surpassable – i was able to synch everything through NewsGator Online and the keyboard shortcuts were customizable.
The problem was more a problem of preference. I was used to using Google Reader: I was used to the way it looked, the way it worked, and used to how easy it was to subscribe to new feeds. The desktop apps just couldn’t compare, as hard as they tried, with my online reader.
And that’s really the issue isn’t it? To get a desktop reader to perform like an online one we have to jump through synchronization hoops and go through the trouble of changing settings. The online ones are set, the way we want them, the minute we upload our feeds.
NewsGator’s move to free was a good idea, but I think it’s too late to really change the fact that online readers have not only caught up with desktop ones, they’ve surpassed them in usability.
