AlertThingy is an Adobe AIR-based desktop client designed to keep you up to date with your social networking outside you browser. Coming only a month after version 2, version 3 offers a few improvements.
You have to install Adobe AIR to run AlertThingy, and we would recommend doing so anyway, as it allows you to run some really cool apps. Once installed, clicking the 'Settings' button lets you get started by setting up your account feeds. Not all social networks are supported, but more are being added all the time. At the moment there's Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr and Twitter as well as Yammer, Basecamp and Huddle. You have to enter your account details for any of these services, then AlertThingy will update you when anything happens, and you can update your status or leave a Tweet and so on from within the application.
AlertThingy also supports RSS feeds, so you can add any of your favorite site feeds which update along with your social networks. It is an attractive program, with stylistic similarities to Apple's Safari. The opacity and color can be changed to suit your tastes, and settings allows you to toggle sound alerts and pop up alerts too.
We found the last version a bit messy if you had many networks and feeds, but the new one features a great expanded mode so each feed has its own column of news. The first version of AlertThingy only supported FriendFeed, not supported in this release, but the multi network support of V3 is well realized.
AlertThingy is a stylish desktop RSS reader and social network service.
