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March 1, 2008

software

NewsFire now 100% free

Posted Mar. 1, ’08, 4:12 PM PT by Thomas Gagnon-van Leeuwen
Category | Software

NewsFire.jpgJust a month after NewsGator decided to make its popular RSS reader NetNewsWire free, Dave Watanabe is doing the same with his RSS client, NewsFire. In a blog post, the indie Mac developer announced that the app, previously $15, is now 100% free with “no feature restrictions, no ads, no cut-down ‘lite’ version”.

For consumers, I think this is a great shift in the Mac RSS market. A few months ago, free RSS reader usually meant Vienna or the Lite version of NetNewsWire (plus Google Reader, if you include web apps). Today, the two major players, NetNewsWire and NewsFire, are also free. Basically, we now have a choice of quality readers for nada.

However, for developers, I doubt everyone’s happy. For one, this pricing change was undoubtedly forced, or at least inspired, by NewsGator’s decision. Could’ve NewsFire survived in a world where its biggest competitor was free? Maybe, but it would’ve been much harder. Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba raised the issue when NetNewsWire went free, arguing the move “killed the paid RSS reader market on the Mac”, a market upon which some developers rely on for their income.

There’s now little doubt it has. The question remains though, is it really a bad thing?


8 Comments

Chris Thomson said:

Dave said "[...] no ads [...]", but there are ads. You can't unsubscribe from HIS blog. This makes the software 'ad' supported.

Dave Wannabe has some really interesting (A.K.A. stupid) ways of making his software free. Inquistor was affiliate based, and NewsFire is based on a subscription you cannot remove. Not good enough, Dave. We need complete control, like we have with NetNewsWire.

March 1, 2008 5:20 PM
funkright said:

"Not good enough...?" hmm.. one would think it's his choice, let the market as a whole speak before condemning his decision..

March 1, 2008 6:43 PM
Eric Longstaff Author Profile Page said:

Yea no kidding. It's very Microsoft-like publishing his feeds in Newsfire without being able to remove. Guess he's hoping you read his feeds and go and buy Acquisition or XTorrent.

Do what I did create a group called "Trash" and move his feed there.

Wait a minute. I don't even prefer RSS news readers and Safari get's the job done for me and I'm a daily RSS news reader. That settles it.

March 1, 2008 7:16 PM
William said:

No way. This guy and his forced insults to software... Such as forcing you to go to his web page when you quit aquisition. I think this guy is a punk and his software is junk. I tried various of his apps off and on and there is much to much of his limited personality imposed on the software. Even free he manages to leak his obnoxious personality into the software. While he is an independent mac developer, he does not understand many, many things.

March 2, 2008 3:00 AM
Kelmon said:

The only way that this works is if the developer can either get income from advertising, cross-sell you other products they or their affiliates make, or they have a wage-paying day job. If your job is writing Mac software and you now have to give it away for free then it's not rocket science to realise that this isn't going to pay the bills. Might be time to open-source the project to get some more people to do the work to continue development and look for other work that pays otherwise the product is going to stagnate.

I know that free is preferable for the consumer but I have no problem paying for good quality software if doing so will ensures it continues.

March 2, 2008 3:08 AM
Wayne Schulz said:

Why is this news?

Google Reader has been free since launch.

Shouldn't the headline be "Google Reader forces us to go free because nobody will pay"?

If I am missing something, please let me know.

March 2, 2008 3:48 AM
Walt Author Profile Page said:

I've been an avid NNW user for maybe over a year now. Maybe more or less. Can't remember.

I didn't like this guy's website. Basically... no information other than "download here." So I did, just to see what it's like. Now I see why. There pretty much is nothing else. He was aiming for a minimalist approach and that's just what he gives. I mean, no more basic features than the built in RSS of Safari or Omniweb. Just presented to you in its own window. Which admittedly is enough for most people

For the features that I require, nothing comes close to the usability of NetNewsWire and the way its tied into their syncing servers and my iPhone.

I'll tell you why it's free now Dave W. - Because the heavy hitters of all RSS clients is now free. Who would spend $70 on Pages, or any other "office" package if MS Office suddenly became offered for free? Very few I suspect. I probably would, but there aren't enough people like me to keep the revenue flowing in.

@Wayne Schulz - because there is a huge difference between the news service offered from the likes of Newsgator and google. The world has not moved on to the cloud computing program yet. We are slowly making progress, but not there yet. Some people still like real applications that reside on their computers and pump the data between them and their news source. Just look at the loud outcry when Apple tried to throw web apps to us as if they were real apps. Same thing here. Then there are those who refuse to comply with Google's privacy policies. Or at least let me put it like this. They provide me with nothing that will put my want of their services or applications over the threshold of what I deem acceptable sharing of my information. I'd rather pay for and use my own domain for mail than use gmail. In fact, I pay for my own domain *and* pay for .mac just because I want to and can afford it. But I refuse to use gmail for free.

I haven't bought into the whole Google thing yet. I think they are the best search engine (askjolene notwithstanding... ;-) ) and love their Maps on my iPhone. But that's where the love ends. I enjoy my NetNewsWire too much to use google news. I enjoy my iWork too much to use google apps. I enjoy my own domain and .mac too much to use gmail. I enjoy iPhoto & .mac web galleries too much to use google's Picasa, flickr, or whatever. I enjoy iWeb & .mac too much to use any other blogging and free webhosting services.

March 2, 2008 11:25 AM
Goobimama said:

@walt: You also seem to be having a lot of time on your hands writing such loooong replies :)

As for David Wannabe, I personally think he is snobbish. There are many people who offer free software, but they are much better natured and friendly. He is just a stuck up punk who wants people to worship him for his acts of kindness towards us degenerates.

March 2, 2008 12:12 PM

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