NewsGator, Free-ness and Attention Data
In case you missed it, some great news for you RSS fans out there – and for all those who are but don’t quite know it yet: our client NewsGator recently announced that it is offering all of its award-winning desktop RSS readers NetNewsWire (Mac) and FeedDemon (PC), as well as a suite of mobile clients, for free.
The reasoning behind the free pricing model – the readers used to be 30 bucks – is pretty cool. First, NewsGator wants to drive RSS adoption to make it a ubiquitous tool, meaning you, me, your friends and family all adopt it into our daily Web browsing habits. This is nothing but a good thing for everyone, and the Web itself. RSS is an incredibly useful tool for anyone who reads a lot of online media, does research, deals with documents regularly, or is simply an avid Web user. RSS captures bits of Web pages or information, streams it instantly to those who subscribe to certain feeds or searches as they are published, and delivers it right to your RSS reader. The end result is a customized set of information that’s delivered to you, so you don’t have to spend time perusing the Web to get each new story or post. Think of it as a digital paperboy. Once someone starts using RSS, the common reaction is “how in the world did I get by without it?” Kinda like the Internet itself, right?
Secondly, as adoption spreads, NewsGator will be able to collect more and more attention data on people’s reading habits. Attention data – which, never fear, is totally anonymous – can be used by Web-based programs to automatically customize someone’s experience with the application. For example, if a person reads a lot about the Seattle Mariners, NetNewsWire can see that, and if asked, tell that person a site or two that they don’t know about, but might also like. This type of intuitive, intelligent design is what the future of the Web will be built on – the Web simply making information as easily accessible as possible.
So, if you haven’t caught the RSS wave yet, you should give NewsGator a try like about a million other people already have. After all, it’s free!
2007 Year in Review
Last year was a landmark one for LaunchSquad; here’s a quick rundown of some of the highlights:
We grew from 18 to 30 employees and added seven new clients to our roster, bringing our total to 24. About half of our clients are located outside the Bay Area in places such as Boston, Colorado, Delaware, L.A., N.Y., North Carolina, Seattle and Wisconsin.
An industry survey of technology media named us the best public relations firm in the small agency category.
Two LaunchSquad clients executed successful initial public offerings: comScore, one of our first clients, issued in June, while current client SuccessFactors went public in November.
Apple published a profile of LaunchSquad and our favorite Apple gear.
Our work with BarelyPolitical helped create one of the most popular Internet celebrities in Obama Girl.
We opened up an office in Manhattan in August and now have five folks leading up our growing East Coast presence.
We launched more than ten companies and dozens of new products and services. Check out some past posts from this blog for some highlights.
Our client Everdream was acquired by Dell in November.
We helped two of our clients launch as new brands: Awareness (from iUpload) and Daptiv (from eProject).
We expanded our capabilities and experience in green/clean technology, entertainment, consumer tech and social media.