NetNewsWire has changed my thinking about RSS aggregation. Until now, I’ve been using HTML-based aggregators: Radio Userland, Amphetadesk, and Newsisfree. Although, I liked each of them, they seemed difficult, slow and clumsy; no better than visiting the original sites themselves.
NetNewsWire is stand-alone application, and it makes it far faster and easier to review news sites, looking for interesting stories. It’s so fast, it’s guaranteed to increase the amount of news I’m going to be able to review.
RSS still overwhelms me with the amount of available information, and I still prefer to visit some sites (Slashdot, News.com) to see stories in context. But it’s beginning to feel useful to me in a way that it didn’t before.
NetNewsWire also shows that HTML is not always the best way to deliver information, especially if speed and interaction are important.