Rojo is a free, Web-based RSS reader that melds a conventional newsreader with a social-networking community. Like other aggregators of Web content, Rojo lets you subscribe to RSS, XML, or Atom feeds to stream news headlines, blog summaries, or even deal-of-the-day catalogue listings directly to your Rojo account.
It took us a few quick minutes to sign up with Rojo and get started. Rojo let us immediately subscribe to popular feeds, such as the New York Times, and we were also able to search for more feeds by subject. For example, a search for feeds related to ecology retrieved only 41 items -- quadruple what Google Reader found, but Bloglines turned up 383 and Newsgator Online dug up 68.
Rojo's interface is straightforward, though slightly busy, with a list of feeds on the left, tabs on top to separate contacts and content, and a central pane that shows the latest stories. Using a Web browser, you scroll through Rojo's indexes of feeds, click a story title or a page link that interests you, and read the item in a browser window. We like that Rojo lets you sort stories by date, by subject tags, and by the frequency at which they're read -- and of course, it lets you import OPML feeds from another newsreader. Yet these features aren't unique, as popular competitors do the same thing. However, the popular Bloglines does not support tagging, which makes Rojo the better choice if you like to seek and sort stories by subject. Rojo lets you save stories for later reference, but Bloglines allows you to save pieces of stories as Clippings -- handy if you're doing research.
Rojo stands out from its rivals by focusing on social networking. Bloglines gives you the option of making your list of feeds public, but Rojo goes one step further with features that promote interaction between its users -- a unique approach in a genre designed to deliver personalised content. For instance, you can Mojo a story, which means tagging it as recommended reading for other Rojo devotees to find. Wonder which stories are popular with other members? Click the Top Stories tab to view a list of Mojo'ed articles. In our tests, only a handful of stories out of dozens in our feed list had been tagged with Mojo more than once or twice, so perhaps the community spirit isn't quite there yet. Social bookmarking services such as Digg are more widely used.
You can also create a list of Rojo contacts -- friends and business colleagues, for instance -- and share feeds with them. Adding contacts is tedious work, though. You'll have to type them one by one and can't import, say, an address book from a popular e-mail program, such as Microsoft Outlook.
Rojo's execution needs work, and its interface lacks the polish of newsreaders such as Bloglines. Rojo could benefit from an easy-to-use subscription tool, such as Bloglines' Sub with Bloglines, which lets you add a site to your newsfeeds just by clicking a browser button or a menu item. Rojo also needs a preview pane for viewing Web pages, and we'd like the ability to update feeds automatically more often than once an hour.
Rojo's support is handled by online community forums, a slim but helpful assortment of FAQs, and several guided tours for beginners. These forums are helpful, and unlike the relatively nonexistent personal support from other Web-based services, the Rojo staff generally responds to queries within a few hours.
Overall, Rojo is a decent newsreader based on a clever concept, but we believe it could be better. If you demand subject tagging and want to see what other users are reading, then Rojo is a great choice, but we wish that it could display more content within its interface the way Bloglines can.
Be one of the first to rate this product!