news reader

Hear that? That's the sound of millions of news junkies on the Web scrambling to find an alternative to Google Reader.

As you may have heard, Google Reader will soon be no more. The search giant has announced that it will shutter its much-maligned -- though still widely used -- RSS reader, which will, no doubt, leave many users in a tizzy, searching for other ways to subscribe to their favorite RSS feeds. Sure, Google Reader may not have been the most beautifully designed product to come out of Mountain View, Calif., but it sure was convenient. And now … Read more

From the minute I was able to put the personalized magazine app Zite on my iPhone, it became one of my indispensable tools.

Even if I glanced at it for just a few minutes at a bus stop, it was the best portal I had to the news I cared most about because it led me to stories from a wide variety of publications and on almost any topic I could want. And the more I used it, the more it knew what I wanted to read.

That was a year ago, and today, the iOS world can get its … Read more

Even in a Silicon Valley flush with young college dropouts, 16-year-old Summly CEO Nick D'Aloisio's age is still an attention grabber.

And despite his age, or maybe because of it, he's perfectly comfortable with reincarnating his product -- technology that can automatically summarize information -- as needed. D'Aloisio's company released a news reading app today that summarizes news articles, creating a sort of CliffsNotes for the news, for the iPhone.

It'll be the second time the London-based teenager has repackaged his product, and this time he did it because he feels like the consumption … Read more

News-reading app Flipboard has 20 million reasons to celebrate today.

The app, which lets users integrate social media accounts into its feed and presents updates as news stories or blog posts, marks its 2nd birthday with 20 million users, 1.5 million of whom access the app daily.

The company has picked up steam over the years and now boasts a new Flipboard user every second, with users spending an average of 86 minutes per month on the app, according to its blog post.

With 3 billion items shared each month, Flipboard breaks down what its most popular sections and … Read more

The New York Times announced late today it would collaborate with Flipboard to make the entire newspaper available on the popular social news-reader app.

Beginning Thursday, Times subscribers will have access to articles, videos, photo slideshows, and blogs produced by the newspaper from within Flipboard. Nonsubscribers will be able to read a limited sampling of the newspaper's content.

The partnership is being touted as a first for both companies. It marks the first time the startup has persuaded a large publisher to make its content available on its platform. Indeed, Flipboard says the authentication process and navigation experience was … Read more

If you're not familiar with Flipboard, it's a magazine-style news reader that has been wildly popular on iOS for quite some time. What gives it extra cool points is its ability to handle social media. See, Flipboard can integrate your social accounts into its feed, and present tweets or other status updates just as it would news stories or blog posts (complete with images and video thumbnails). Couple this with Flipboard's gorgeous tiled interface, and it's easy to see why the app is such a fan favorite.

With its clean design, vibrant display of photographic tiles, … Read more

Making its unofficial debut earlier this month on Samsung Galaxy S III demo units, Flipboard for Android has finally opened itself up...a little bit. No, the app isn't widely available on Google Play yet, but perhaps just as good, you can now download the official beta version of Flipboard through a public download link.

If you're not familiar with Flipboard on iOS, it's a magazine-style news reader app that has reached an amazing level of popularity. What gives the app extra cool points is its ability to handle social media. See, Flipboard can integrate your social … Read more

ChannelCaster for Android lets users create and publish personalized "channels" that aggregate news from thousands of supported news sources. In addition to all of the expected big-name publications and blogs, ChannelCaster can pull feeds from Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and Twitter. Its design is clean and visually appealing with its sharp, vibrant thumbnails, and its navigation is incredibly simple with only three main tabs along the top of the app.

The Favorites tab is really the heart of the ChannelCaster experience. This is where you save your most frequently visited channels, and presumably where you'll spend most of … Read more

You talk to friends on Facebook. You play games on Facebook. You even watch movies on Facebook. And according to a new report, you could soon be catching up on your news reading from within the social network as well.

Forbes reported today that Facebook is at work with a number of media companies including The Washington Post, CNN, and News Corp.'s The Daily to cook up something called "Facebook editions," which would launch later this year. Forbes' Jeff Bercovici described them as something akin to "app versions" of the news outlets that live inside … Read more