inessential by Brent Simmons

FeedDemon

My friend and former co-worker Nick Bradbury writes of The End of FeedDemon:

That was the nail in the coffin for me. I hate to say goodbye to FeedDemon after a decade of working on it, but it’s time to say goodbye. When Google Reader shuts down on July 1, FeedDemon will also disappear.

Before Nick and I were co-workers, we were both indie developers working on RSS readers. (Check out this Economist article from 2004 that mentions us both.) We weren’t competitors, since FeedDemon ran on Windows and NetNewsWire ran on Macs.

NetNewsWire shipped first — but FeedDemon shipped features faster than I did, and I shamelessly stole some good bits. Which Nick didn’t mind. (He encouraged me, even.) We became friends, and later became co-workers.

It makes me sad to read of the end of FeedDemon. It mattered to me. But, more than that, I’m sad for my friend.