summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/12.25.06/Wed/socialist.txt
blob: e8378c5b3a1a1b3326b0ac16f283b572e57ae07e (plain)
1
Back when I [reviewed][1] social bookmarking sites, I gave [del.icio.us][2] high marks for their API because it allows outside applications to take use the site however they choose. [Socialist 1.0][3] is a newish mac application that utilizes the del.icio.us API. Socialist is the brainchild of Mark Davis who previously worked on Musicast and RapidWeaver.

But Socialist is not just a del.icio.us frontend, it's also an RSS reader.

The design of Socialist mimics that of Apple's Mail.app so it should look immediately familiar to Mac users. Just enter your del.icio.us account information and you'll be logged in and the three-pane interface will show your bookmarks. 

You can then subscribe to del.icio.us tags, other users feeds or any old RSS feed you enter by hand. Regrettably Socialist doesn't seem to recognize feed calls from Safari. Using Safari I set Socialist to be my default feed reader and then clicked on a feed link. Socialist came to the forefront, but did not auto-add the feed.

Once you've added your favorite feeds to Socialist, whenever you run across something you'd like to bookmark it's one-click simple to add it to your del.icio.us account. There's also a button to send it as an email, but it didn't seem to work in my testing.

Overall Socialist is a good looking app, it does what it says (except the email issue) and does it well. In addition to looking good, Socialist is lightening fast at loading and refreshing both del.icio.us and RSS accounts.

Because I'm not a del.icio.us user, Socialist is of limited use to me, but if it supported [ma.gnolia.com][4] and polished up its RSS features a little, I could see myself ditching my current RSS setup in favor of Socialist.

If you are a del.icio.us user and you're looking for a way to integrate your RSS feeds with your bookmarks, Socialist just might be exactly what you've been seeking.

[1]: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/internet/0,72070-0.html "Wired review of Social Bookmarking Sites"
[2]: http://del.icio.us/ "del.icio.us"
[3]: http://getsocialist.com/ "Socialist 1.0"
[4]: http://ma.gnolia.com/ "ma.gnolia.com"