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 Posted 7/24/2007 2:51:06 PM |
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NewsGator
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| Today we are happy to announce several leaps forward in the NewsGator Mobile HTML reader. Firstly, we have changed the URL to a new, easier to access format. User are now able to go to http://m.newsgator.com and enter credentials to access their feeds. This replaces the PIN-based model, and allows for easier typing on a Mobile device. Second, we have developed a version of the mobile reader specifically for the iPhone. This version is optimized for the iPhone touch-screen and the resolution. The URL above will automatically detect that it is being accessed from an iPhone (as will the regular NewsGator reader) and redirect to the iPhone-specific version. Finally, we have made the NewsGator Mobile HTML reader availabel to all users. Free users, as well as Premium, will have full access to m.newsgator.com
Jonathon McDougall
NewsGator Support
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| Posted 7/28/2007 7:53:47 PM |
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Forum Member
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Many thanks for your extremely well designed mobile reader for the iPhone. I am new to Newsgator, and have had an iPhone now for approximately 3 weeks. The mobile Newsgator Reader for iPhone is by far the best app I have yet found. The ability to easily synchronize on-line and mobile reading is fantastic. The ability to mark all items read on a particular RSS feed with two quick taps on the iPhone (one on the top bar to get to the top of the list of links, and one on the All Read button) is elegantly designed and lightening fast. When an RSS feed is marked as All Read, the mobile reader instantly jumps back to the Index, displaying the next feed and the number of items in it.
I just now learned that I can easily mark ("Clip") an item to later send to friends and others via e-mail on the PC Newsgator Online Reader--frosting on the cake. I can now very quickly find items worth sharing with others and do so with remarkable ease.
I am a very grateful convert to this program, and have bragged about it on one of the Apple iPhone discussion boards. I hope you end up having many, many happy iPhone users.
Once again, thank you for an excellent, well-designed, and extremely effective program.
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| Posted 7/30/2007 11:00:07 AM |
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Forum Deity
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Well thank you for the great feedback. I will include it in my weekly report and make sure that the development team sees it.
And did you know?!? You don't have to email your clippings to your friends. You can publish your clippings folders in your NewsGator Online account as web pages. Your friends can actually subscribe to this page and see five clippings at a time. As you add new content, the older content will fall away.
Just right click on a clippings folder and select the option to "Share Web Page / RSS" and be sure to copy the HTML URL and the RSS URL. They will be slightly different. You can even subscribe to that feed yourself so you can keep an eye on what your friends are seeing.
Again, thank you for the great feedback.
Keith Franklin
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| Posted 7/31/2007 5:21:43 PM |
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Forum Member
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Keith and all . . .
Doh! I was trying to send a private reply, but was unable to do so. The "clipping" feature, as you suggest, is an excellent way to share items with friends. The current limit is 5 items. I looked around a bit to see whether some kind of "premium" version I can subscribe to would allow me to create a longer clipping list, but was unable to have any luck on that.
It this an existing option or one that may happen down the road? I read numerous blogs and cut and paste quite a few items each day for my friends. If the limit were more generous (say 15 to 20 or so), I could probably switch entirely to the clippings approach. But since I am currently receiving this amazing product without cost, I hesitate to even mention my request.
Thanks!
John-Mark
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| Posted 8/1/2007 2:19:20 PM |
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I'm afraid that even with the premium reader the limit is five. That may change but no such plans are etched in stone at the moment.
But not to worry, I did some playing (I mean working) around with one of our newsreaders and found a way to publish up to 20 items at a time as an RSS feed. That newsreader is FeedDemon and clipping items to a news bin with that program could not be easier. You just click on the icon that looks like a bread box and a list of your news bins pops up for you to choose from.
FeedDemon is available for a 30-day test drive. Here is the link.
Keith Franklin
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| Posted 8/1/2007 3:09:33 PM |
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Thanks for replying. Before I give that a try, let me make sure I understand you. My goal is to be able to add to "clippings" on the iPhone client. When I am on the PC, there are multiple ways to notify friends of worthy URLs, including very quick cutting and pasting of URLs into a single e-mail message. Your suggestion may add to those possibilities on the PC side, but I don't understand it to make things any simpler when using the iPhone.
The beauty of the "clip" button your iPhone mobile client is that it has the potential of overcoming a huge limit in the current iPhone software: there is no cut or paste of any kind on the iPhone, and you cannot send an e-mail while reading an RSS feed.
In fact, one of the things I especially like about the your iPhone mobile client is that the "Clip" button just works automatically; you do NOT need to choose from a list of possible clipping folders, which would be kind of an annoyance on the iPhone screen--the clipping just automatically ends up in "My Clippings" on the desktop.
Does this make any sense, or should I still explore the alternative you mention?
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| Posted 8/3/2007 2:49:30 PM |
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Actually it makes perfect sense. For a moment I forgot we were talking about the iPhone. I went off on a tangent with NewsGator Online and FeedDemon and completely forgot about your mobile device.
My statement about FeedDemon holding 20 items was a bit off. I was looking at the RSS feed itself which can actually hold up to 200 items. They will fall off after two weeks or after 200 posts. This is true of any RSS feed created by any of our newsreaders. So you wouldn't need FeedDemon at all.
Just to clarify; The webpage will still hold only 5 items but the feed itself can hold many more. If you can convince your friends to simply subscribe to your feed instead of going directly to the page, they will be able to see more items.
Additionally, in future updates of the iPhone reader you will have the ability to move clipped items to another folder. I know you said it might be an annoyance on the iPhone screen, but at least the feature will be there. It is actually there now but there are so many features available that the iPhone has trouble handling them all. We intend to trim the fat a bit there.
Keith Franklin
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| Posted 8/3/2007 3:51:02 PM |
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Excellent. I just realized that the Clippings on the web hold more than 5 clips at a time. This is a perfect work around for me at the moment. I can send as many as I need to there while I am away from the PC, using my iPhone (e.g., 15 to 20 or so), and then eyeball the clippings on my PC when I later log onto the web with that device. At that point, I can decide if there is anything worth passing along to friends. Very elegant, and more than enough for my needs.
If you do allow the iPhone user to choose a folder for the clippings, I hope your programmers can do something very easy so that we don't need to tap more than once. One possibility would be to present more than one "Clip" spot: "Clip" and "Clip/Choose". There is certainly enough real-estate on the iPhone screen to allow that. "Clip" would simply go to "My Clippings" -- "Clip/Choose" would present the option to choose a folder. That would be sweet!
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| Posted 8/6/2007 11:23:49 AM |
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Forum Deity
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Hey that's a neat idea. I'll put that in as a feature request in case nobody has thought of it yet. Thanks for the suggestion.
Keith Franklin
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| Posted 8/6/2007 11:45:48 AM |
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Another modest software change suggestion for the iPhone module. When the user clicks "All Read" at the top, the screen clears and the user is back to the list of feeds. At someone's suggestion, you good folks added "Page Read" at the bottom of the page--nice example of how responsive you folks are to your user base.
It would be nice if clicking on "Page Read"--if this is the end of the feed--would have the same effect as clicking on "All Read" at the top: clear the screen and return to the feed list.
If this is not doable for some reason, no worries. It is still only two clicks: "Page Read" and then "All Read."
Thanks . . .
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