Appnews is a new software update notification service that provides software updates via rss, twitter or email. It is the brainchild of long time Ghacks reader Rarst and combines notifications about software updates with links to reviews of those software programs on the websites Freeware Genius, Ghacks and Rarst. Every new entry consists of the name of the application, the new version that was released, links to at least one of the source websites that contains reviews of the software, direct links to the download pages, mailto friends and twitter possibilities plus the usual social media links to bookmark or tag the website.
Rarst did all the work on the project with me and Samer doing a little bit of beta testing. It’s his project that we fully support. You can take a look a the appnews website to see how it looks and subscribe to the various update notification options.
Rarst made an announcement post where he is going into a little bit more detail on the technicalities. The service is basically a mashup of Rss, Dropbox, FeedBurner and SimplePie.
Here are the direct access links:
Home: http://appnews.net/
Feed: http://feeds.appnews.net/appnews
Email subscription: http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=appnews&loc=en_US
Twitter: http://twitter.com/appnews
Search engine: http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=014146561317267595789:1f-ivlvlh7y
Feel free to leave comments here or at Rarst’s blog. Suspect that Samer will introduce the service on his blog as well soon. We would also like it very much if you would blog about it, send it to your friends, comment about it on other sites or add it to social media sites that you are a member of. We think that this service is something special. And there is of course growth potential to add additional review sites to the mix.
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Too much credit to me. :) I did most of technical stuff but it was collaborative input that shaped Appnews into that fine site. I didn’t even have site in mind at start.
Well we picked the domain name that I found, ha but the rest is your doing. Don’t be shy!
@Martin
Shy? Me? :) It was only week of work for joint project with two extremely known and popular blogs.
I just think I am getting very tasty deal here. ;)
For the record the whole site part was your idea, I only suggested joint feed.
Nice idea!
Not particularly sold on the theme though.
Also, although I managed it via trial and error, it’s a bit tricky to figure how to add the feed to the firefox bookmark bar.
@Womble
Thanks!
On feed – hard to find it on Appnews site (I think I properly stuck it everywhere I can) ? Or hard to subscribe in Firefox?
Unfortunately RSS feeds are consumed in so many online and offline clients that it is not possible to provide subscription instructions for everything.
@Rarst
Yeah I meant subscribe with Firefox rather than using google etc. I like my favourite feeds on the toolbar.
NVM it works fine now, I think I was probably just having a dim moment :)
Well it works fine when I click the RSS icon in the Firefox address bar. I can select the appnews feed or any of the three from the associated sites.
@Womble
It’s a little hard for me to trace because I am Opera kind of a person. :)
Are using Firefox feed view (light-yellow on top and feed items below) to subscribe? You are not seeing it because Appnews feed has “browser-friendly” option enabled that overrides Firefox preview.
To get Firefox preview on such pages you should click “View Feed XML” on FeedBurner page which in case of Appnews points to
http://feeds.appnews.net/appnews?format=xml
Was that your issue? I will look if I can tune it to be more Firefox-compatible.
Wow, I was just thinking about an idea exactly like this!
I’m not sure if this is just me or not, but are the twitter buttons working?
@Ethan
>I was just thinking about an idea exactly like this!
I hear that a lot at my blog. My ideas are probably very generic. :) Or I just tune up well with my readers.
Ops… Extra bits crawled into Twitter links since I last checked if they work, Promptly fixed! Thanks for the catch.
Hey, I know this Rarst guy from somewhere…. :)
Great idea guys. Look forwarding to following your updates.
@Nick
Nah, tech bloggers are simply secret cloning project, they all look alike. :) If not bless of different WordPress themes people wouldn’t tell as apart.
Cool idea, some thing of an aggregate of sorts.
Appnews, on Apr 27, for instance, makes notification of two new software updates.
On Apr 27, Snapfiles gives me 13 new freeware updates.
On Apr 27, Freewarefiles gives me so many more updates I didn’t bother counting.
I applaud your efforts, but the other sites seem to be more complete. Can you help me find a reason to continue to use Appnews?
@ BillB I am not involved in the project but I think one can say this is only a start. And being linked to diverse (different sites) reviews makes it more…diverse (can’t find another word lol)
Speaking of which, Martin or Rarst can I get involved?
@RG
Glad you like it. :)
@BillB
On Apr 27 there were probably several million blogs updated on Internet. Why should you bother reading ghacks if those other blogs give you so much more?
1. Apr 27 “instance” was freaking launch date. Older updates in feed are from initial testing while site wasn’t live.
How many updates Snapfiles provided on first day? :) Oh, I also saw Snapfiles added Everything search utility yesterday. About… five months after ghacks and Freeware Genius covered it? So up to date.
Still, it won’t compete with software portals because Appnews is not a software portal
2. If youг had missed that in description Appnews doesn’t aim to provide updates for every software title in the world. It provides updates for software previously covered at participating blogs.
Basically it is service tailored to our readers.
So while subscribing to Softpedia will bring you daily updates for all software on the planet, subscribing to Appnews will bring you updates for software me, Martin and Samer considered worth attention and for which we wrote review (or in some cases numerous posts to cover indepth).
It is intersection between our blogs to give our readers more information. Not a world domination project. :)
What? Not a world domination project? You’re kidding right? Having said that there is always the possibility to expand. Adding new blogs is one option that I mentioned previously.
RG I’m pretty sure that you can get involved. We are currently collecting all kinds of suggestions and ideas to see where we go from here.
@RG
Yep, diversity is good word for it. It is mix of software from three blogs which are not completely common but have similar readership that is interested in similar things (judging by flows of traffic between us).
On participation mail me details contact@rarst.net
No promises, I simply pile those request for now in separate folder. :) Which direciton Appnews will expand in should be decided later when it gets some ground.
@Martin Thanx, I will write to you shortly, I may be able to be a small part/addition to it
Great! :)
@Roman ShaRP
Phew, it’s good to see long-time ghacks readers liking the idea. :)