NetNewsWire to sync with Google Reader

An interesting bit of news today, at least for me and other people who use NetNewsWire to read their RSS feeds. NewsGator, the company that owns NetNewswire, will shut down its own web-based feed reader in favor of Google Reader. NewsGator's web-based reader was also the mechanism via which NetNewsWire synced between platforms (say, NNW on your Mac vs. NNW on your iPhone).

It's a mildly interesting development (and one that was frequently requested by users), but to me it feels too late to be of much impact. Nowadays my news comes more often from Twitter than RSS, and I've moved my RSS feeds over to a personal installation of Fever. Fever's detection of high-interest items is exactly what RSS reading has been lacking. I dig it. It also has an elegant (if quirky) iPhone interface. The only reason for me to hang on to NetNewsWire is to be able to read feeds offline, and how often does that happen anymore?

I suspect NNW will lose some users as a result of this, but will probably gain more in the bargain. This will also be an opportunity for alternative desktop & web-based RSS readers like Bloglines and Newsfire to gain new users as the migration generally shakes things up.

I'll upgrade to the latest version of NNW on both platforms and move my feeds over to Google Reader for syncing, but I have a feeling it will be idle most of the time. Ah, well. The world changes.