News Monster, a highly complex news aggregator that integrates into Mozilla, came in two flavors so far: a free version and a commercial pro version with additional features. From now on, NewsMonster is now just one product (pro) and is available for free.
Maker Kevin Burton: "This was a long and hard decision but it seems to make sense considering that my major goal with this release was to build a distributed reputation system and very advanced RSS aggregator. Since most of these features were locked up in NewsMonster PRO this kind of defeated the whole purpose. I'm hopeful that more people will take advantage of this and help build up the reputation system. Right now there are still a few tweaks I need to make in order for each NewsMonster peer to exchange necessary certification information but this will be included in 1.2.3."
Now let's see if and how fast and large the distributed reputation system will grow. This is an extremely interesting feature of NewsMonster, though it is doubtful that the tool will spread considerably beyond a technically very inclined circle.
NewsMonster.org >
UPDATE
I have reports from Martin and others coming in that NewsMonster happily kills Mozilla installations as if it still was pre-alpha. NewsMonster's complexity and Mozilla's constant advancement do not seem to be a perfect match. There is a #newsmonster chanel on irc.freenode.net where one might get help in selecting a "good" Mozilla build.
Comments are closed at the moment. I will post a blog entry as soon as they are available again.
