RSS feeds have taken a lot of the hassle out of following websites. However, they can be a very generic and ugly way of following your favorite sites. Times offers an interesting way forward.
Times is an RSS reader that allows you to read feeds through a newspaper-style interface. It features all the benefits of a solid RSS reader but with the elegance of a printed periodical. It's organized just like a newspaper with the page sections along the top such as Technology, Science, Sport and News. You can create your own pages simply by going to 'Edit' and 'Create Page'. To add an RSS feed, click on the pen in the top right-hand corner.
Your feeds panel then opens, showing all the feeds you have assigned to various pages. Enter a website address for the feed, Times will do a quick check to see if it is has an RSS feed and when the green tick appears, simply enter a name for your feed. Then you can drag and drop the feeds into position on the page you've created, making your own personalized page.
One little bonus is 'The Shelf', which works on the same principle as Stacks on Leopard. You can drag items of interest onto your shelf for reading later and when you click on the shelf symbol in the top-right corner, the shelf appears with the articles expanded Stacks-style, so you can see exactly what you're reading.
The overall look and feel of Times is a refreshing change from your average RSS reader. However, navigation can be a little frustrating. Hiding the feeds requires you to access the view menu when you should be apple to drag or pop the panel back up when you're done adding a new one.
It's also a little annoying how you can't access the comments on articles using Times - you have to go directly to the page itself, which will open in your default browser if you just click on the title. You can, however, share feeds extremely easily on Digg, Facebook and Twitter thanks to integration with all three.
Times is definitely worth trying for those who are nostalgic for newspapers or have never gotten used to the way RSS feeds are normally aggregated.
