[REVIEW] You Subscribe:RSS

Just recently, I found a nifty application: the You Subscribe:RSS. Basically, it’s a news aggregator, a software that allows you to read blogs (or webpages that supports syndication) using well-known syndication technologies such as RSS and ATOM.

 

Imagine this: you have a set of boomarked URLs of your friend’s blog or news sites. In order to read the blog entries, or news articles, you have to visit each site. Lot of work, isn’t it?

 

With syndication technologies, these sites can share information to other sites, or other applications, without you having to visit the site. This information that they share are called feeds. An application that collects feeds and presents them in an aggregated manner is called a news aggregator.

 

I used to have a separate news aggregator application. I have tried BottomFeeder and RSS Reader. Both are free and easy to use. However, there is something about the You Subscribe:RSS news aggregator that sets it apart from the rest. It’s the capability to integrate well into Outlook.

 

The set-up is very straight-forward. You just have to follow the wizard and in a few minutes, you’re all set. Re-start your  MS-Outlook and a new toolbar menu appears on top. Click the You subscribe button to begin the configuration.

 

If you don’t have a feed yet, it boasts of 400 pre-loaded feeds. You can add your own feed by clicking on the add button and entering the feed’s url. For example, to add the PCCians 95 Kumbento Boys blog feed, just enter http://pccians95.blogspot.com/atom.xml and it will automatically update your feeds list.

 

If you’re a heavy MS Outlook user, you will definitely like this application. It supports all RSS and ATOM feed formats, even gzip compressed feeds! You can even organize the feeds into any Outlook folder of your choice. However, there are several important features that are missing. Most prominent is the inability to support HTTPS. In Google Mail (gmail), using secure http (https), you can add as a feed your Gmail Inbox.

 

You Subscribe: RSS is definitely a great application, and it’s free! The download version is still in beta (public preview) and there are promising features that’s in store with the official release. One is the ability to search into your Outlook folder for feeds from the most popular search engines and the capability to post to your blog from within Outlook.

 

Overall, the You Subscribe:RSS news aggregator is an excellent choice for heavy Outlook users. It’s free and intuitive and offers a great deal of promise come official release.

 

-Allan