RSS feeds have changed the way many use the web. People don’t go to content; content comes to them. Instead of manually checking individual websites for updates that might not have been made, they check just one place- their feed reader- and see new stories from all of their favorite websites. Feed readers are often used as an alternative to visiting the actual web site, but they don’t have to be. If you like the update notifications of RSS but prefer to visit the actual web page, there’s an app for that.
RSS Menu is a free menu extra for OS X, and its interface is very simple. When closed, it’s just a little icon that sits in the right side of your menu bar, and when open it looks like a standard OS X menu. Choose a feed, then a headline and the web page opens in your default web browser. It’s like having Firefox’ Live Bookmarks without having to use Firefox. It also has scheduled checking of feeds, notifications via Growl and/or speech, and optional integration with iTunes podcasts and Safari RSS. RSS Menu is free as I said, but if you like it the developer accepts donations via PayPal or Kagi.
What feed reader do you use, and why? Sound off in the comments.