This article was published on April 21, 2013

Monotony: This simple RSS reader brings your feeds to the Mac’s Notification Center


Monotony: This simple RSS reader brings your feeds to the Mac’s Notification Center

By now you may have come to accept that Google really is ditching its beloved RSS reader. Many Reader fans have already flocked to alternatives like Feedly, while others are waiting to see what will happen with Digg.

There are countless alternatives and replications out there, but I’d like to draw your attention towards something different: a simplistic app named Monotony.

Monotony is a bare-bones service which brings your feeds to Mac’s Notification Center. That’s it. Every time a new story is posted, it’ll pop-up as a notification.

Monotony’s usefulness depends on how you use RSS. For interesting stories that don’t go stale by the end of the day (evergreen content), its easy to see why an app for collecting and managing numerous articles is helpful. But for news, especially the “[Breaking]” kind, Monotony makes it easy to watch stores as they occur during the day. This is Monotony’s niche.

Screen Shot 2013-04-21 at 6.14.50 AM

Even for non-news sources, I’ve found keeping real-time tabs on what’s happening in the world outside my own tasks satisfying.

Of course, if you’re the sort of person that hates notifications and is easily distracted by alerts, this is not the tool for you. Also, if you’re paranoid about missing something, don’t expect Monotony to archive things for you.

Try the free app out for yourself via the link below and let us know what you think!

➤ Monotony for Mac (free)

If you’re a fan of Monotony, you might also like this app which brings Spotify to your Mac’s Notification Center.

Photography: Emma Weber

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