Earlier this week, it was announced that Newsgator, which provides one of (if not THE) best online RSS news readers on the net, was purchasing FeedDemon, also arguably one of (if not THE) best desktop RSS readers.

Now, historically, I’ve been ardently anti-desktop readers. My main complaint against them really involved my laptop-less period (which was also the period I really got into blogging and reading feeds), when I was trying to keep my feeds synched on my desktop at home and my desktop at work. Even if the feeds were the same, I never knew what I’d read and what I hadn’t read.

Logically, the easiest way to fix this problem was to use a web-based reader. I started at the top, and worked my way down.

There are all sorts of online RSS readers available, but they’re all somehow lacking (perhaps they don’t display nicely, or they won’t let you manually refresh, etc.). Unfortunately, desktop-based readers are much more robust and feature-rich in today’s Internet world. I thought the best solution was to compromise. I wanted a web-based service that would synch with my desktop reader (kinda like IMAP or POP3 email combined with a webmail client). This really seemed like a simple request. I definitely thought it would have been brought up and developed by someone out there before I came along looking for it.

Much to my surprise, there was no such service anywhere to be found. At one point, I even set out to create my own service offering in this market. Ironically, the night before the NewsGator announcement, I’d actually sat in bed and outlined the service requirements and structure that I would need to setup to meet immediate needs. The next morning I was absolutely shocked that NewsGator had beaten me to the punch, and answered my dreams at the same time.

With any luck, as soon as NewsGator launches their first integrated version of FeedDemon, they’ll earn a new loyal client… me!