Feedreader.com - News

Introducing Feedreader Anywhere

tom-admin — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:50:25 +0300

It's about time to introduce new server based application called Feedreader Anywhere (or simply FRAW).

Feedreader Anywhere is version of Feedreader that runs, well, anywhere :). And it does not matter if we are talking about different operation systems or different geographical continents. Whatever kind of computer or phone or appliance you are using or in whatever location you are currently happen to reside – all your feeds are only a click away. And even if you have not used Feedreader Anywhere for a while you still have all the newest articles waiting for you. This is because Feedreader Anywhere updates feeds even if user has not logged on.

So in one word – Feedreader Anywhere is a Feedreader that is available anywhere without the need for complicated installation and management process.

Functionality

When developing Feedreader Anywhere our priority was not to duplicate the functionality of standard Feedreader. There are a lot of different features in Feedreader that are really not used by everybody. So we want to keep this thing simple. After all – this is the logic that we are praised for.

At the same time standard Feedreader lacks anything that is related to groupware features. But these features are highly needed in corporate environments. The coolest groupware feature that will be included in Feedreader Anywhere is the functionality to share and subscribe the folder of feeds. Basically one user can create a structure of folders and feeds and share the folder. Other users can subscribe this folder and use it the way like it was their own folder. And if user who shared the folder subscribes to new feeds in this folder or unsubscribes from some feeds then all the changes are reflected on every user who has subscribe to this particular shared folder.

Multiuser environment also opens some interesting possibilities when it comes to finding the feeds that user could be interested in. For example user subscribes to „CNN Top Stories“ newsfeed. Feedreader Anywhere analyzes other users feeds and can then offer a list of feeds that are subscribed by users who have also subscribed to „CNN Top Stories“.

Some screenshots

How we are placing the product

We see Feedreader Anywhere as a product that can be used by companies for providing their employees the access to RSS feeds without any complicated installation processes in every computer in corporation. Feedreader Anywhere is also great way to go if corporation has offices in multiple locations and intranet has quite loose architecture.

Feedreader Anywhere can be used for offering employees the access to public RSS feeds (newspapers, portals and so on) but can also be used for sharing corporate information inside the company. Be it then CRM messages, company news, or daily menu :).

We also see Feedreader Anywhere as starting point for creating custom workflows that are different in case of every company. For example news agencies can add editorial environment to Feedreader Anywhere. Media monitoring companies could use Feedreader Anywhere as client portal for sharing information. PR entities inside larger corporations can use Feedreader Anywhere for storing articles. Uses are limitless.

We will not currently offer Feedreader Anywhere as public service. The idea is interesting but we are lacking the resources to do it with quality.

Technical details

Technically speaking - Feedreader Anywhere is a web application that lies on top of Feedreader Connect Server. Feedreader Anywhere is developed using Borland Delphi that is non-interpreted language. This means that application is really fast then compared to usual applications that are developed using PHP, Java, DotNet or Perl.

Feedreader Anywhere runs as Apache module. It's also possible to offer ISAPI module then there is request for this.

As Feedreader Anywhere user interface is developed using HTML and Javascript then anybody can create 100% custom layout for Feedreader Anywhere. Develop special iPhone version or version for WAP browsers – everything is possible. It's only matter of changing HTML and Javascript.

Feedreader Anywhere and Feedreader Connect Server are both using MySQL Server as database backend. On request Microsoft SQL port is also possible.

Preview available

You are welcome to get a sneak preview of Feedreader Anywhere. Please navigate to http://web.feedreader.com/ and after simple registration (no emails and other non-important stuff is asked) you are ready to go. If you cannot get yourself registered then you can always play with username "test" and password "test".

If checking out sneak preview of Feedreader Anywhere then please notice that this is not 100% running and completed application. This is really not even an alpha version but something that's shown fresh from our labs. So in other words – not everything is not working. And if it does not work in your case then please give us time to make things better.

Things that do not exist yet or are under development:

Unread counts
Seeing more than 200 articles at one time
Smart feeds
Different layout modes
Folder sharing and subscribing.
It's not possible to trigger feed update manually
No ways to import feed list (OPML).
Search is only using article titles.
Auto-discovery of feeds does not work
etc

Supported web browsers:

Firefox
Internet Explorer (7,8)
Opera
Safari
Google Chrome.

When it comes to web browsers then safest bet is to use Firefox or Google Chrome for testing.

Feedreader 3.14 released

tom-admin — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 10:12:07 +0300

We are proud to announce Feedreader 3.14.

Changes and additions:

Offline support added - Read more from here
Faster update intervals possible - Read more from here
Upgraded to new FirebirdSQL version. This version is faster and more stable.
Fixed bug with enclosure/podcast download when using some proxy servers. Previously download progressbars were left open.
Added twitter search feed
Proxy configuration added to welcome dialog.
Performance improvements because we eliminated some functionalities in RSS engine (Newsbrain) that were not needed in standard Feedreader.
Added a /debug parameter that can be used to debug Feedreader in case of problems.
Updated tree component that we are using inside Feedreader.
"Keep application in front when opening links in browser" is fixed
Translation files now support latest User interface features
Some little (and old) bugs fixed
Fixed some bugs with chunked download
"Smartfeed not saved" bug is fixed!

Download

Please download release from here (zip from here).

Donate

If you like the release then you can make donation to our Paypal account at paypal -@- feedreader.com

Update to Feedreader Connect Server.

tom-admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:07:51 +0200

There have been some big changes then it comes to Feedreader Connect Server.

First of all - we have made Feedreader Connect Server prices more logical and also more affordable. Till this day only way of purchasing Feedreader Connect Server was with monthly payments. For some it was confusing. From today on you can purchase Feedreader Connect Server with the following prices:

Up to 100 feeds - 490 Euros
Up to 1000 feeds - 990 Euros
1000 feeds and more - contact us!

So you are welcome to purchase your dream software now :).

And if we were on it we also updated some documentation. Please take a look at new article that explains what are Article Indexer and Web Page Downloader. We did not describe these add-ons clearly before.

We also updated Feedreader Connect Server free version installer with fresh new version (including latest FeedreaderAdministrator). You can download it from here. Free version can update 4 feeds but in other terms it's quite like normal Feedreader Connect Server.

If you still do not know what Feedreader Connect Server is then please take a look at this image:

and read our announcement here :).

Feedreader Connect - Usage cenario #1

tom-admin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:15:52 +0200

We have been asked multiple times about possible uses for Feedreader Connect Server. From our documentation it's looks like the product is quite powerful. But what exactly we can do with it? This made us to create slide show where working application that uses Feedreader Connect Server is demoed. Following is an working example of how Feedreader Connect Server is used for information monitoring. It gives interested parties some ideas for what Feedreader Connect could be used.

On following screenshots you will see administration environment of media monitoring application. We use it both for administering public portal and also for offering services for end users. We also sell this application on top of Feedreader Server. Clients of this application include various media related organizations but interestingly also police organization. But now about functionalities.

Following image shows topic groups that we have defined. Topic group consists of one or multiple topics. For example topic group "Microsoft" could include "Microsoft, Windows XP, MSFT". All topic groups usable in public portal (or private portal) and also available to be used as RSS feeds to be imported to other information systems or RSS readers. The list of links provides the shortcuts to the same topic group feed in different predefined channel groups. I will talk about channel groups later.

In next screenshot you will see how the topic group is defined. In this example we see topic group called "Microsoft". Each keyword is tracked continuously. You can also define topic groups that share topics/keywords.

Following images shows you how to define channel groups if needed. In simple cases you do not need to create channel groups because you want to find information from all the subscribed feeds in your database. But in more advanced cases it's possible to create channel groups like „online news only“, „paper channels only“ or for example "blogs only". This way you can limit the search of information only to some channels.

On next screenshot we have opened channel group in detail view. You can add and remove channels if you click on "Manage".

Functionality „mail rules“ shows you one of the outcomes of defining topics, topic groups, channels and channel groups. You can choose group and channel group, add email recipients and voila! – all the recipients will get all matching articles as emails. This search is persistent - you set it once and then let it run. Articles can be grouped to one email and sent few times a day or recipients can also get article as soon as it’s added to database. You can see here the status of mail sending (when the rule ran last time and how many articles are sent).

Following images shows you how we define mail rule. First you select topic group and then select one or two channel groups (for example NEWS and BLOGS). After this we add recipients, change subject of email and also email greeting. Finally you can specify if you want to send articles grouped. If you choose to send articles grouped then you also specify the times when to send the articles.

Second output from this application is statistics of mentions. You can select topic group and channel group and then select start and end dates and get the statistics either for use in Microsoft Excel or you can do the visual statistics inside our application and can save the created graphs as images.

Following screenshot shows the output of defined topic group in public portal (news.station.ee). It’s accessible by anybody.

On next screenshot you see the same topic group as before. Only this time it’s only accessible by paying clients.

Feedreader MySQL Edition expire period updated

tom-admin — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:06:30 +0300

Just wanted to let you know that if you are the user of Feedreader MySQL Edition and want to continue using it after expiration please download and install update of Feedreader MySQL Edition which can be downloaded from here. After this you will get new expiration period and also some changes/bugfixes :).

If you are interested in buying Feedreader MySQL Edition (price 29 EUR) then please contact toomas at i-systems . ee

Feedreader 3.13 released

tom-admin — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:01:50 +0300

We are pleased to announce Feedreader 3.13. Besides normal version it's also available as version using MySQL backend. This will be the last version of Feedreader before the summer. If there are some critical bugs we will do extra releases but no new functionalities are announced.

Now about new features, changes and fixes:

Added experimental feature - "Add new article" to Feedreader. You can now add new articles or edit existing articles. It's not only true about Feedreader articles - you can copy article text (HTML) from Internet Explorer or even from Word and paste it to Feedreader and save as article. This is good for gathering information to your own "knowledge base".
Search feeds support.
Added possibility to have multiple archives for articles. Create them from File > New > Archive
Archive folder has its own icon now
Feed autodiscovery fixed (occurred then discovering feeds from japanese language pages)
HTTP Chunked download fixed. In some cases Feedreader could run out of memory because of web servers that are serving documents with chunked method.
Fix for situation where unreadcount was calculated incorrectly then one empty folder was moved to other empty folder.
Added update priority field to feed. If you have a lot of feeds you can now add greater priority to feeds that you really want to update on time. Then all these higher priority feeds will always updated first.

Downloads:

Feedreader is seeking a strategic partner / investor

tom-admin — Thu, 22 May 2008 11:49:11 +0300

Feedreader is the oldest RSS based product on market today. It's been 8 years since the start of our product. Feedreader product is used in hundreds of thousands of computers and in multiple Fortune 100 companies. Feedreader has become synonym for RSS related products. After last two years of development we are finally coming to a point where we have decent portfolio of Feedreader3 products for both personal and corporate environments. While at this point we feel that we need additional power to move to the next level.

This is why i-Systems Ltd. is searching for and accepting offers from strategic investors to participate in Feedreader project. We are offering 20%-80% of project share to investor based on negotiated conditions.

Offer includes following parts:

Application portfolio which has taken ca 6 man-years to complete
Feedreader brand
Client leads
Knowledge in RSS, information technologies, media monitoring fields

By "strategic investor" we mean company who'd like to be part of RSS technology landscape and who has desire to actively participate in leading of strategic processes (marketing, development of existing and new products based on RSS technologies). Potential for marketing products to existing user base (in case of companies) is welcome.

i-Systems Ltd is private company limited by shares situated in Tallinn, Estonia, European Union.

Interested parties can take a look at our technology page to get information about Feedreader product portfolio.

Information inquiries : Toomas Toots, CEO of i-Systems Ltd., Email : toomas -at- feedreader.com, Skype: toomas, Phone +3725021669 (Time zone GMT+2)

Feedreader Platform available!

tom-admin — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:30:45 +0300

We have been developing Feedreader and RSS technologies already for 8 years (Feedreader is the oldest actively developed RSS reading application on the market today). New Feedreader3 platform been developed already two years. This development has resulted in nice and efficient RSS reading tool.

But what is not stressed out is that those development years have also resulted in bulletproof and scalable RSS platform called Newsbrain that could be used for absolutely everything that comes to a mind. We just do not have power to create all those vertical and horizontal applications for end users or companies.

So if you or your company is thinking about special vertical application that should use RSS technologies then you are more than welcome to contact us.

Fastest way to get background information about our RSS platform is to read white paper about it.

White Paper - Feedreader Platform - Technical background of Newsbrain and applications using Newsbrain.

Feedreader roadmap

tom-admin — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 12:02:43 +0200

We usually have not talked about Feedreader roadmaps. But today I'd like to make exception and tell a little bit about (killer) functionalities that we plan to add during the next 3-4 months to new Feedreader versions:

Search feeds – We all know about web services that let users generate RSS feeds from the output (search results or image streams). We will incorporate functionality of easily creating search feeds to Feedreader. Input your search phrase then select ONE or MULTIPLE search feed services (for example Google, Flickr, Ebay) . After creating search feed it will be added to your feed listing. Use it 100% the same way as you use other feeds. Create additional smartfeeds that make use of search feed and so on. You can later modify created search feeds by changing search phrase or the selection of search search feed services. I hope that we can offer results as one feed not multiple feeds (one for every service). Search feeds will have separate icon. It will also be possible for users to add search feed services themselves to Feedreader. This is good for organizations where application servers usually have RSS output based on queries and want to make dynamic results available in Feedreader.
Multiple archive support. At the moment there is and can only be one archive but we will change this. It will be also possible to change the locations of archive folders. Archive folder will have separate icon.
Manual creation of articles. With this you can copy information found in web or email to Feedreader and have all your knowledge base in one location.
Import and export of articles.
Import and export of smartfeed definitions.
Offline support.
Comment feeds.
Easily add multiple search phrases to smartfeed then creating it.

Feedreader 3.12 Released

tom-admin — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 10:12:12 +0200

We are announcing Feedreader 3.12.

Changes:

Fixed (again) columns resize bug
Some new options (disable version check, color alternate rows)
Indonesian translation added
"File > Database information > Clean up" works a little bit more quickly
We will now tidy up database on every startup of Feedreader. This helps to keep database small and queries fast.
Added "Search from last 30 days" filter to search functionality. You can enable it from searchbox popupmenu.
Fixed a bug what occurred then pressing D in article where no enclosure exists.
Internal database changes. This is about performance and avoiding potential hangs.
New experimental feature "Quick Add Tag". If you are a person who constantly tags articles you may find it interesting. Feedreader tracks all your added tags and makes them available in Quick Add Tag submenu in articles listing popup menu. Now you just have to select a tag from this submenu and it will be added to article.
Article page feature. Basically if all articles do not get shown on opening some feed or folder then there will appear buttons that let you see also older articles and so on.

Please download 3.12 alpha from our site.