News aggregator

A news aggregator is a software application or remotely hosted service that collects content from disparate news sources, allowing the user a single place of consumption and alerting the user of content updates. Te aggregator periodically collects a set of news feeds, in one of several XML-based formats (RSS or Atom).

News aggregators free the user from having to browse to their favorite website checking for updates, greatly improving productivity. Users are able to create a unique information space that caters to their specific needs and desires. Essentially, news aggregator users are becoming their own media editors.

There are primarily three types:

• Desktop news aggregators
• Online news aggregators
• Server side aggregators

Note also that the web browsers Mozilla Firefox, OmniWeb, and Opera and the e-mail client Mozilla Thunderbird now support RSS and Atom.

The term news aggregator is often mistaken with newsreader.

Contents

1 Desktop news aggregators 2 Online news aggregators 3 Server side aggregators 4 See also 5 External links

Desktop news aggregators

These are software applications that run on your computers.

Online news aggregators

Online news aggregators are similar in functionality to desktop news aggregators, but are accessed online through a web browser. Feeds are checked for updates automatically by the service provider. Unlike desktop news aggregators, online news aggregators can be accessed from anywhere.

Server side aggregators

These function much as online news aggregators, but are administered by the user. They can thus be viewed as a hybrid of desktop and online news aggregators. To use one of these, you need to have your own http server (preferably Apache) with PHP and have MySQL installed on either your own computer or on a server. Exceptions are noted in parentheses. Please note: If you plan to run your aggregator on a hosted server, please check with your provider about firewall security setup. They may need to explicitly "allow" your rss feeds.

See also

• List of news aggregators

External links

• 24eyes - Premium RSS Dashboard
• List of RSS and Atom news feeds
• List of news aggregators at Dmoz.
• List of RSS aggregators
• Lockergnome's discussion forum on news aggregators.
• AmphetaDesk
• BlogExpress
• Abilon
• Awasu
• Serence™ KlipFolio™
• RSSOwl
• Vox Lite
• SharpReader
• FeedDemon RSS reader for Windows from the creator of TopStyle and HomeSite
• Aggie
• Wildgrape NewsDesk
• Sauce Reader
• Feedreader
• BottomFeeder
• Rippy the Aggregator
• Liferea
• Rss Atom Feed Finder with direct submit
• All Headline News
• Flock - Requires a Java Servlet container like Tomcat
• MyNewsToGo RSS Aggregator for Windows
• WebPasties RSS News Ticker - No server-side requirements, works in plain old vanilla HTML
• ExtraLabs RSS Aggregator - RSS Aggregator is a easy RSS reader, multifuctional news aggregator, and blog client.
• Plazoo RSS search engine and aggregator
• RSS Network RSS directory, search engine and aggregator