NewsGator Buys Creator of FeedDemon RSS Reader

NewsGator gains a Windows client for RSS aggregation with its acquisition of Bradbury Software and the FeedDemon feed reader.

NEW YORK—RSS aggregator NewsGator Technologies Inc. has acquired the company behind FeedDemon, one of the most popular desktop news readers for Windows.

Denver-based NewsGator plans to announce its purchase of Bradbury Software LLC on Tuesday during the opening day of the Syndicate Conference here. Terms of the stock and cash deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition adds a desktop client to NewsGators growing suite of software and services for subscribing to and reading RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.

"Our platform is all about being able to read content on any device, whether on the Web, e-mail or mobile device," said Greg Reinacker, founder and chief technology officer of NewsGator. "The hole in platform was that we didnt have a Windows desktop application for people who didnt want to be reading from Outlook, and FeedDemon was the market leader."

NewsGator first entered RSS aggregation in 2003 with a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook, which displays syndicated posts as e-mail messages. But it since has branched into offering a Web-based aggregation service called NewsGator Online and versions for mobile devices, Windows Media Center and other e-mail clients.

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NewsGators move signals further consolidation among startup RSS aggregation providers as major competitors such as Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.s MSN division enter the market. Earlier this year, Ask Jeeves Inc. bought Bloglines, a widely used Web-based RSS aggregator and a competitor to NewsGator.

Click here to read about Bloglines moving beyond RSS.

Starting later this summer, NewsGator will provide the FeedDemon client to NewsGator Online subscribers. Current users of FeedDemon, which had been sold for $29.95, will be given two-year NewsGator Online subscriptions that include upgrades to new versions of FeedDemon.

NewsGator also announced that it plans to offer FeedDemon as a client for its upcoming enterprise server product, code-named Dino and due for general release later this year.

Both NewsGator and FeedDemon users will gain increased synchronization capabilities. NewsGator Online already syncs feeds and status information across its software and services, a feature that will be extended to FeedDemon, Reinacker said. NewsGator also is developing an updated version of its Outlook-based plug-in to improve synchronization.

Click here to read about KnowNows introduction of an enterprise RSS server.

Bradbury Software was founded in 1999 and also developed one of the leading CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) and XHTML (extensible HTML) editors for Windows, called TopStyle. NewsGator said it plans to continue supporting TopStyles development indefinitely.

Nick Bradbury, the founder of Bradbury Software and the developer behind FeedDemon and TopStyle, is joining NewsGator as the architect of client products. He said the move will allow him to devote more time and resources to development work.

"Besides synchronization, there are features that I want to do for FeedDemon but couldnt because I need a server side," Bradbury said.

For example, FeedDemon could take advantage of NewsGators server-based service in order to include features that display related items and feeds and most talked-about articles, he said. A new version of FeedDemon is expected in June.

Before the acquisition, FeedDemon had created partnerships with both NewsGator and Bloglines for synchronizing feeds between the client and those services.

While FeedDemon will continue to work with Bloglines as it does today, its future development will focus on integration with NewsGator, NewsGator officials said.

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