NewsGator acquires NetNewsWire, Scoble a fan

In what’s big news to those of us using mac’s, as opposed to PC’s, Newsgator has acquired NetNewsWire, the leading desktop aggregator for mac’s.

Newsgator is a a web based RSS feed aggregator/blog search engine. I use Newsgator to subscribe to RSS feeds of blog and news feeds referencing key words and key phrases I monitor. I then use RSS feeds from Newsgator to deliver such posts and news feeds to NetNewsWire on my PowerBook. It’s a great set up.

NetNewsWire and its accompanying blog publisher MarsEdit are simply great. I would not leave home without them. They are superior products to any desk top aggregator for PC’s – probably because they do not have the 800 pound gorilla, Microsoft, developing RSS and aggregation tools for its new operating system, breathing down their necks.

Earlier this year Newsgator acquired FeedDemon, the leading desktop aggregator for PC’s.

Both applications run about $30 to download.

Follow up: Scoble is a big fan of Newsgator and this acquisition. Like me is critical of their Web based interface – great feeds but hard as heck for their users to figure out what’s there.

Scoble also has first hand proof of Newsgator’s popularity: “Bloglines used to be the most used aggregator out there. Today I only have about 9,000 users on Bloglines, but 15,000 on NewsGator (and that’s before NetNewsWire gets added to the mix).”