Hello Facebook? Say Hello to Your NewsFriends

With the first of what promises to be many mashups of social networking systems and RSS, we introduced a free products for Facebook users called NewsFriends. This social news application is designed for Facebook users to easily find, read and share blogs, news, videos and podcasts with their "friends." It's simple and easy to use- you just select your friends and automatically get the news they are reading. (You can also choose from some hand-picked packages of feeds selected by our editorial staff, similar to the "starter packs" for NewsGator Online.) The application also lets bloggers expand their readership and more easily connect with their audience.

As Richard MacManus of ReadWriteWeb notes, NewsFriends is not designed to be the main news reader for power users of products like FeedDemon or NetNewsWire, but it's a great complement to those products when those users are spending time in Facebook. For Facebook-junkies who aren't currently using a dedicated RSS reader, this is a great way to get all of the benefits of RSS within that familiar environment. Some of the top features include:

• Easily see and subscribe to your friends favorite Web sites and blogs
• View which friend was first to subscribe to a site (and get credit for being the first one to do so)
• Using the Facebook "posting" function, post any article (along with comments) on a profile page or send it to friends

A screenshot is shown below.  To find out more about NewsFriends, click here. To add the free application to your Facebook account (no NewsGator account required), click here.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, RSS, NewsGator, NewsFriends, Web 2.0, Social Networking,