NewsRaider – An impromptu resurrection.

I’m on holiday at the moment in a place where it costs more per megabyte than I thought mathematically possible. Being an avid browser of news sites I’m at a bit of a loss…. I need my fix but it’s just not worth more per article than single copy of your favorite paper magazine.

So… the idea struck me to get out our NewsRaider, nip into a net café with wifi and download more articles than possible by any other means. I have just done this and now on my hard drive I have hundreds of articles to read… oh joy! That Hammond Innes novel that someone left on the shelf of the Villa in 1988 can stay in its dusty frame.

NewsRaider came out about three years ago as a real-time TomeRaider for news sources. For a brief while we all really thought it was going to be the killer app to accompany TR.

NewsRaider was essentially bent over the digital pool table by Google Reader and other online news harvesters. Its quite a sad day as when you have to admit to yourself, your developers and staff that what was three years ago a really powerful innovation is now not much use to anyone – even if it is still powerful. The highway to tech progress is littered with such carcasses.

NewsRaider still sells and there are customers who still really rate it and use it regularly but it just can’t compete with browser based reading for the online times.

But as said, there is still a role for this app, and that’s for offline reading on your PC, Palm or Pocket PC. So, if you’re traveling someplace where there is no net, or maybe just traveling, download it from www.newsraider.com and see if it satisfies your lust for content.