NewsGator Online – Smart Feeds (cont’d)

I felt compelled to look into the other Smart Feeds so today I looked into the url option. This is interesting because it will specifically search for any and all pages that are linked to the url that you enter. So for me I can enter the url for this blog (www.twonsolo.com) to find out all of the other places on the internet that are linked to my page.


This worked better then I expected. When I put in my own url it pulled all of the postings from the two places that I have entered, or linked to twonsolo.com. Typically I use twitter to distribute an update about new posting that I have entered. This pulled each of the tweets that I have entered for my postings. I was also testing the feeds from twonsolo.com and I linked another blog to this one. Each of those postings also pulled into the search. I don’t know if this is something that everyone would use, but it is defiantly interesting if you have a business website or a blog, you can find out who and/or which other sites are linking to your content.


I also tried out the last Smart Feed that NewsGator has built into their functionality which is something that I was really amazed to see. It is called Email feeds and what this does is provide you with your own email address at newsgator.com so that you can enter it into sites that send out email notifications or newsletters. Then these emails are captured within NewsGator and stay out of your email inbox. By signing up with the newsgator.com email rather then your other email, your email inbox stays clean and all of your news populates to the same place, your NewsGator My Feeds Folders. It allows you to setup up to 5 separate email addresses so you can basically have a new one for each topic that you want to follow.


The NewsGator team takes it one step further though by allowing you to distribute your own newsletter. It seems pretty easy as well. You just enter the newsgator.com email address in your To line and then make that email feed public. Then other people can receive your newsletter through RSS.


I setup my own email and I signed it up to receive a couple of different newsletters. I found that it worked really well for receiving them and I could easily read them just like if they arrived in my email inbox. The main difference to note and something I should probably caution you on is that this function operates just like any other folder within your “My Feeds” folder tree. What this means is if you have the mark read on view function enabled, the email will disappear from the reading pane if you navigate to a new folder. So you just have to remember to use the other NewsGator Online functionality and either “Add to clippings” or “Tag this post” in order to save them for viewing later.


Another thing to note is that if you sign up for an email newsletter that requires you to confirm your email address before it will add your subscription to the active list, the link that it provide will not be a hyperlink. Simply copy the link and paste it into a new browser window (or tab depending on your settings) this will activate your subscription and you will begin to receive the emails.


For me this is a great tool. It allowed me to move all of the emails that I receive from stores, groups and organizations to NewsGator. It freed up my email to just contain actual emails rather then ads or something else. I also knew what to expect every time I opened the folder in NewsGator. Just remember that it follows the NewsGator Online rules so you don’t loose anything important!


At this point I have covered the basic functionality for NewsGator Online. The next few posts will focus on NewsGator Inbox for Outlook.