Tickershock - A non-standard RSS reader

The macosxhints Rating:
9 of 10

[Score: 9 out of 10]

Developer: Mesa Dynamics / [Product Page]
Price: $19.95

I'm guessing that this week's PotW will be disliked by many, as it clearly reflects one's personal preferences in newsreaders (programs like NetNewsWire Lite, for instance). My work habits don't lend themselves to traditional newsreaders; I don't usually have the time to sit down and page through screen after screen of updates on numerous websites -- my newsreading time comes in odd (small) snippets and chunks of time throughout the day. So I end up probably reading less news than most people, as I do so by only regularly visiting the handful of sites that I find truly interesting.

But recently I stumbled on Tickershock, which presents RSS feeds in a unique manner -- as seen here [2.2mb QT movie, reduced 50% from true size]. Instead of presenting an application window with some form of site and headline manager, Tickershock puts a scrolling list of headlines on your screen. You control the speed, font, color, location, etc. of the ticker to suit your tastes -- I have it positioned at the bottom of my 'alternate' monitor, moving relatively slowly. If you don't like ticker-style updates, there's an optional billboard mode that shows the headlines in a static panel.

For me, this is the perfect newsreader, as I can just let it sit there and slowly scroll by. When I have a free minute or two, I'll glance over at the scroller and see if anything catches my eye. When I'm busy, the ticker is positioned and set at a speed that I really don't notice it at all -- this is the feature that I know some (many?) will hate, as they find motion on the screen distracting. But with the speed and colors I've chosen, I find the scroller blends right into the background when I'm not actively looking at it. And yet, when I want news blurbs, they're but a flick of the eyeballs (and mouse) away. Like any good modern RSS newsreader, Tickershock includes a bundled WebKit browser, or you can click a button to jump to your default OS X browser.

Probably not a pick for everyone, but if you like having news available and don't mind a bit of onscreen motion, Tickershock is worth a look...

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Tickershock - A non-standard RSS reader
Authored by: leenoble_uk on Wed, Oct 27 2004 at 11:46AM PDT

I use NNW Lite and I NEVER look at the main window. I find it a pain having to keep moving up to the toolbar to mark headlines as read and then back down to the sources to choose the next site.
What I do use is the contextual menu in the dock. I only need click on the dock icon when I can see there are new headlines to read. I quickly scan the list from top to bottom selecting those I want to read which will nicely open up in Safari whether it's in the foreground or not. Then I mark all the rest as read from the dock menu and flick to Safari to read the ones I was interested in closing the tabs as I go.

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So, I said ... well, I can't actually remember exactly what I said. But it was one of the most enormously cruel and frighteningly witty put downs ever.

NNW
Authored by: taran on Wed, Oct 27 2004 at 11:56AM PDT

I bring the app to the front and use the space bar to go from one article to the next unread article. Each article is marked read as I select it (on rare occassions this is annoying, but almost always how I want it). Manually changing sources and articles is done with the arrow keys. My hands never leave the keyboard.

NNW vs. TickerShock
Authored by: tjarrett on Wed, Oct 27 2004 at 1:41PM PDT

I have been using NetNewsWire since its first release. I am currently subscribed to 272 syndication feeds. There may be a causal relationship between these two statements.

Seriously, NNW makes it possible and easy to subscribe to and read large numbers of feeds in a way that I haven't seen with any other newsreader on any platform. This is where a tool like TickerShock would fall down for me. I think it would probably take more than an hour (my default refresh) to get through all the headlines that I would want to read, in a speed that would allow me to read them. Plus context is important--if I read a headline, I may interpret it differently if it's from a blog than if it's in the New York Times.

NNW vs. TickerShock
Authored by: robg on Wed, Oct 27 2004 at 2:37PM PDT

Clearly this wouldn't work for you :).

For me, on a 'good' day, I'd bet I read maybe 15 news articles...

-rob.

NewsTicker
Authored by: horhey23 on Wed, Oct 27 2004 at 11:58AM PDT

NewsTicker, is only $5. Good feature set. It's a new release and there are a few features I'd like to see implemented, but the developer said he's working on them when I contacted him.

NewsTicker
Authored by: Cameroon on Wed, Oct 27 2004 at 6:42PM PDT

This is a "me too" post for NewsTicker.

There are some features that I would like to see added, but until I can figure out how to describe them articulately, I won't pester the developer ;)

NewsTicker
Authored by: agent0068 on Fri, Oct 29 2004 at 3:33PM PDT

I only just happened to download NT and was ready to pay for it until I noticed 25-45% CPU usage *all the time*...

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NewsTicker -- one "flaw"...
Authored by: Cameroon on Wed, Oct 27 2004 at 6:46PM PDT

One "flaw" is that the developer's website is, sorry, terrible to deal with if you are a) tired b) a very high rez monitor or c) have weak eyes.

Or if you want to copy & paste any text. The reason being is that everything on the site is a graphic.

I'm trying to figure out how to word a comment to the developer without offending anyone because the design is nice, but being shackled with graphics-as-text is painful.

NewsTicker -- me too
Authored by: bonobo on Wed, Oct 27 2004 at 8:10PM PDT

Maksim Rogov, the author of NewsTicker, is very responsive, NT is really dirt cheap, you can customize the look of NT quite a lot. Yes, there still are a few glitches, but if you consider that this app is out for just about two months, it's really great. I've tried other tickers (Tigger, Tickershock and one or two others) but none of them could really par up with NT. NT needs only one click for an action, TickerShock needs two, no-no.

By the time NT reaches 3.0 it will rule the Mac world ;-)

Cheers, Tom
is not married or whatever to Maksim Rogov, just a happy user :-D

Tickershock - A non-standard RSS reader
Authored by: lebowski on Wed, Oct 27 2004 at 2:27PM PDT

I think it looks very nice, but sadly i'd get sick of it after about 5 minutes. I don't like too much stuff happening on my screen, especially if i'm trying to get some work done.

Nope, it's still NewsFire for me!

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Tickershock - A non-standard RSS reader
Authored by: nite77 on Thu, Oct 28 2004 at 8:01AM PDT

If anyone requires just one place to read rss from, I'd recommend Panther News Ticker widget for Konfabulator, and it the author manages to get support for multiple rss streams working, then I'd say goodbye Tickershock.

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/Nite - "can't rain all the time"
[ http://www.nitesade.net ]

Terminological Pedantry
Authored by: ahruman on Thu, Oct 28 2004 at 6:37PM PDT

Excuse me, an RSS reader is not a newsreader. A newsreader is a client for the Usenet (nntp, or news:) protocol, such as MT-NewsWatcher.

re: Terminological Pedantry
Authored by: rcameron2003 on Sun, Oct 31 2004 at 1:18AM PST

Brief observation: RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. What is syndicated (text) but...news? Sure, articles, other stuff that doesn't constitute a press release, but if I don't know it, it's news to me. :-) I'm ok with calling an RSS Reader a News Reader unless further specificity is required for clarity.

RSSOwl
Authored by: Kerberos on Fri, Oct 29 2004 at 7:47AM PDT

I'm not an obsessive news reader, either. I've found I use RSSOwl all the time now for those sites with RSS feeds (such as Mac OS X Hints!). I had tried several other RSS readers but found them to me more trouble than just going to the sites themselves. Only RSSOwl got me to change. It also renders the actual web page of a story using the Safari engine (or in an external browser if you wish), making it very convenient.

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