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NewsGator acquires NetNewsWire

It’s official (although Ranchero has no mention of it), NewsGator has acquired NetNewsWire. We can only speculate what impact this will have on NetNewsWire (NNW), but then again, speculation is fun, so here goes:

First, I’m guessing that Bloglines synching will be removed. Personally that’s how I use NNW, but then again, I have no personal attachment to Bloglines. All I’m looking for is a way to read my news with Mac OS X gum-drops while I’m on my Mac, and a decent enough web interface for when I’m away (and using my phone or PSP.)

Second, hopefully NNW can now automate subscription handling so that I no longer have to jump through hoops to keep my online and NNW subscription rolls in sync. I’m thinking that the Subscribe and Unsubscribe buttons should automatically perform the same action on NewsGator Online.

Next question: What happens to MarsEdit? I’m using MarsEdit right now. Please don’t kill it — I like it! (Although it’s quite good as is… so I don’t necessarily need an update.)

Now for the business angle… What I find particularly exciting is that NewsGator recognized the user need for multiple interfaces to subscriptions and is doing something about it. And even though I haven’t ever used NewsGator (since I’m already using Bloglines), it does sound like they’re creating business opportunities that Bloglines never found. First of all, their basic service is free (just like Bloglines), but they also have subscription upgrade paths that add extra features (although I think the mobile edition should be free.) The upgrade path also includes “premium” content, which is an interesting differentiator. Not to be out-done in netiquette, NewsGator also offers a web-API to developers.

Interestingly as well, if the feature set is comparable, NewsGator just found a way to convert a possibly large set of users over from Bloglines. Furthermore, since they also acquired FeedDemon for Windows, they now control the two leading desktop aggregator clients, which means they not only have compelling commercial desktop applications, but an online data synchronization service with an upgrade path for commercial content services.