Google and NewsGator – What’s It All About?

We announced today that our best-of-breed consumer applications will synchronize with Google Reader going forward.  We announced yesterday that we’ve hit the 1 million enterprise user mark.  As part of the announcement about our relationship with Google we also announced that we’re ending support for a range of free consumer applications including NewsGator Online by the end-of-August.

2500 tweets and one hour later (my personal favorite tweet so far;  “otherniceman too drunk to understand what is happening with Newsgator and Google”) seemed like a good time to clarify a couple of things.

1. What does this really say about NewsGator?  The meme here is focus – our enterprise social computing business has exploded beyond our dreams (for which RSS is the primary enterprise application integration protocol – woo hoo!) and we felt it’s important to insure we have a tight focus on that opportunity.  The consumer products are part of that – FeedDemon and NetNewsWire have huge fan bases among our enterprise customers.  But we’d grown to the point where we had over 60 different SKUs, most of which had very small audiences … so we developed a strategy to give those audiences a path forward while allowing us to focus.
2. Why stop NewsGator Online and some of the other free applications?  The vast bulk of consumer users of our products use NetNewsWire, FeedDemon, and NetNewsWire for the iPhone.  We have a pretty limited audience for the consumer apps that we’re not going to continue to support, including Online.  We felt that as we add Google Reader synch for our best-of-breed consumer apps we would take the opportunity to focus our portfolio and activities where we have big audiences; where we continue to innovate; and where we’re generally headed as a company.  NetNewsWire, FeedDemon, NetNewsWire for the iPhone; our DataServices, TapLynx, and widget businesses; and our rocketing enterprise businesses are where we’ll focus our efforts going forward.  As we announced, ALL of the consumer applications will continue to be supported for our Enterprise customers.
3. Why Google Reader/Google Synch?  We looked for the best online reader companion, and online synchronization platform option, for our consumer applications … and of course have had tons of requests for synch with Google as well.  Google was clearly the best option for an online companion to the consumer readers we’ll continue to innovate and support.
4. Why ads in the consumer applications?  We are heading toward two versions – those with ads and forthcoming for-pay versions without ads.  We feel that the quality of the apps is such that these are fair deals.  We hope you’ll agree.
5. Are FeedDemon, NetNewsWire, and NNW iPhone all going to continue to be developed?  Will consumer versions have at least as much functionality as enterprise versions?  Yes, and yes. 
6. Isn’t it sad that NewsGator Online is going to go away?  OK, I’ll admit I’ll miss it.  But I’ll also tell you that the vast bulk of my content consumption time personally is integrated into my use of our Social Sites platform internally.  (Well, and FeedDemon.  And NetNewsWire for the iPhone).  So I’m sad … but I’m getting more, faster than ever, via NewsGator’s technologies.

We announced a whole bunch of stuff today to insure everyone who was affected had a clear way forward.  But if you’re still unclear, or concerned, let us know (comments to this post work) and we’ll respond as fast as we can.

Thanks,

J.B. Holston
President and CEO

NewsGator Consumer RSS Reader Product Changes & Google Sync

You spoke and we listened: in response to customer demand, NewsGator's best-of-breed consumer RSS applications now work with Google Reader^TM.  Google Reader will become the online companion to, and the synchronization platform for, our award-winning RSS reader applications.  Our RSS readers include FeedDemon, the most popular Windows RSS reader; NetNewsWire, the leading application for RSS reading on the Mac; and NetNewsWire for the iPhone, one of TIME magazine’s top 10 iPhone Apps of 2008. New versions of FeedDemon and NetNewsWire are available today, and a new version of NetNewsWire for iPhone will be available soon.
 
As part of this transition, NewsGator Online users will need to migrate to Google Reader by August 31, 2009.  You can find step-by-step instructions on how to easily migrate your RSS subscriptions here, and we'll provide some in-product reminders to our NewsGator Online users.

Users of FeedDemon, NetNewsWire for Mac, and NetNewsWire for the iPhone will have 30 days to download new versions of these applications that can synchronize with Google Reader. Syncing will give you a consistent reading experience across your PC, Mac, iPhone, and web browser. For example, if you add a new RSS feed, organize your folders, or mark some stories as read on one device, the changes will immediately reflect across the others.  Users of NewsGator Go! can select from the mobile RSS reader options that synchronize with Google Reader.
 
The bottom line for you: we keep improving our client applications, and now you can sync with and use the web based RSS reader you've been asking for.  We've been working with the Google team to make these changes as smooth as possible, and they are thrilled to welcome all NewsGator users to the Reader family. 
 
You'll need a Google account to get started with Google Reader, and can read our simple instructions on how to activate syncing with Google Reader here.

For more information about these and other consumer RSS Reader product changes, view our FAQs.

NewsGator Deepens Relationship with Microsoft & Reaches New Milestone

NewsGator is proud to cite strong momentum in the growing enterprise social computing market, and report that over one million paid business users now take advantage of its Social Sites enterprise social computing solution; Social Sites helps a wide range of organizations harness the value of social computing.  For example, NewsGator counts the top five pharma/biotech firms as Social Sites customers, including Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research.

NewsGator Social Sites creates a business-class enterprise social computing environment for streamlined performance. When coupled with the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 collaboration foundation, it adds Facebook -like features for business, including networking, user profiling, people and content search, community creation, social bookmarking, activity streams, social graphing and robust reporting.

Indeed, as NewsGator CEO and President J.B. Holston says, "the sheer efficiency of connecting experts across organizations, fostering instantaneous collaboration, and organizing knowledge as it’s created argue overwhelmingly for enterprise social computing as the new standard operating system for business. Our customer success demonstrates that social computing isn’t just for early adopters anymore, and NewsGator is well-positioned to help more companies get their social computing environments up and running quickly and efficiently.”

Finally, NewsGator is honored to have recently been named a “depth-managed” independent software vendor (ISV) partner by Microsoft.  Such status is achieved by fewer than three percent of Microsoft partners. This affirms NewsGator as a strategic business partner in one of the most important, fastest-growing markets for Microsoft.

The entire press release regarding this exciting news is available here.

Bersin & NewsGator Webinar: Next Gen Learning with Web 2.0

We would like to invite you to a join us for a free Bersin & NewsGator webinar -- Next Gen Learning with Web 2.0 -- this Thursday, July 30th at 2pm ET.

With decreased training budgets, increased adoption of Web 2.0 tools, and the fast pace of change, HR and knowledge management professionals are under pressure to provide learning and development methods that are cost effective, agile, and in-line with employees’ preferred methods of learning.

High Impact Learning Organizations ™ are transitioning from traditional learning methodologies to social networking and informal learning – using tools such as communities of practice, blogs, and social learning tools to transform their knowledge capture and information sharing.

Join David Mallon, Senior Analyst for Enterprise Learning with Bersin & Associates, and Karyn German, VP of Enterprise Practice Management for NewsGator, as they discuss the approaches, tools, and technologies that are being used by high performing organizations to deliver the next generation of learning and development. Webinar topics will include:

• Industry trends driving the next generation of learning
• The differences between formal and informal learning methods
• A review of the approaches, tools, and technologies used by the next generation of High Impact Learning Organizations™
• End user examples and demos of the use of Web 2.0 tools for next gen learning

We believe people in the following positions will find this webinar of value:

• HR Managers
• Learning & Development Personnel
• Talent Management Executives
• Information & Knowledge Management Professionals
• IT Professionals
• Enterprise/IT Architects
• Emerging Technologists
• CIOs
• Corporate Communications Professionals
• Anyone Tasked With Evaluating, Recommending Or Designing Enterprise 2.0 & Social Computing Strategies

Sign up for this free webinar today!

NewsGator "Colorado Company to Watch" Coverage

Earlier this year NewsGator was named to the inaugural class of Colorado Companies to Watch.  Colorado Companies to Watch is presented by the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade in association with private and public organizations dedicated to supporting second-stage businesses in the state.

Now, Denver's NBC affiliate has also covered this achievement, saying that NewsGator "is being honored for innovating social networking to help businesses work more efficiently" and explaining that the designation is for "companies that have not only found a way to survive, but to thrive in this tough economy." 

You can read their full coverage here.

How & Why to Apply Strategy & Governance to Social Computing Initiatives

If you missed our June 30 webinar, "How and Why to Apply Strategy and Governance to Social Computing Initiatives," hosted by NewsGator's co-founder and CTO, Greg Reinacker, and Stacy Wilson from Eloquor Consulting, you can now access a recorded version of it here.

The webinar covers:

• Why a strategic governance model makes good business sense
• How to connect your internal social technology use to business strategy
• How to determine which social technologies to focus on when
• How social technologies affect organizational culture
• What policy and code of conduct elements to consider

We believe that this webinar is beneficial for the following types of people: Corporate Communication Professionals; Human Resources Professionals; Enterprise/IT Architects; Information & Knowledge; Management Professionals; IT Professionals; CIOs; and anyone tasked with evaluating, recommending or designing Enterprise 2.0 & Social Computing strategies.

You may access the webinar here.

NewsGator Social Sites in Action

Earlier this month, Kirk Evans, Architect Evangelist at Microsoft, had a conversation with Brian Kellner, VP of Products at NewsGator, about the capabilities of Social Sites, our social computing solution built around SharePoint. Laura Farrelly, VP of Marketing at NewsGator, also provides a detailed walk through of some of the cool features of Social Sites. 

As Kirk says in his blog, "Social Sites is a fantastic product with a lot of exciting capabilities.  I have several large customers that are using Social Sites in their enterprise, and every time I talk to a customer that is using it they rave about what a transformation Social Sites provided with their intranet."

We hope you'll find the video of their conversation (below) worthwhile: