On Monday, we launched the BlackBerry® News Feeds application in beta, and I’m here to tell you all about it. The application is a news reader that delivers updated articles as they’re posted for sites that use a popular technology called RSS – or Really Simple Syndication. So if you’re tired of going to multiple web sites to check on what’s new, have a favorite blog you follow to get the latest scoop, or a flood of email subscriptions to newsletters that deliver news in your inbox on a daily basis, then the BlackBerry News Feeds app will provide a single point for collecting all your news information.

This app gives you the control over when you check out the latest headlines or find out about the latest gossip. Being a news delivery service, the application focuses on three pillars of functionality: efficient delivery of the news to your device in an easy-to-read format, assistance in discovering new content, and easy allowance for you to share interesting articles with your co-workers, friends, and family.

We’ll do a quick walk-through of the key features to help you get familiar:

Logging in:

Though the screen may look new, what’s required is not. Just supply the same BlackBerry® ID login that you use for BlackBerry App World™ and you’re all set. If you don’t have one already, create one to get you started. (Check out Alex’s previous post about BlackBerry ID for more)

Subscribing to new feeds:

We’ve automatically subscribed you to some feeds to help you get started, but we’re sure you have your own tastes regarding where you like to get your news from, so we’ve provided a content library that you can explore to find new content. The search bar allows you to search through the library by keyword, or you can type in the URL of your favorite site to see if there is RSS content that you can subscribe to. We also recommend feeds that you may be interested in, which are located in the category “Feeds You May Like”.

Importing Viigo feeds:

For those of you who were Viigo users, we haven’t forgotten about you! We have provided a way for you to transfer your Viigo subscriptions over to the BlackBerry News Feeds app so you can stay connected to all your favorite news feeds.

Reading your articles:

Got a couple minutes to spare? Catch up on the latest news since you last checked. You can easily scan headlines or read article summaries and quickly navigate using keyboard shortcuts; “P” and “N” are great for getting you from one article to the next.

Sharing articles:

Read an article that you think your friend might be interested in? Share it easily through a number of options: email, SMS, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM™), BBM groups, Social Feeds on BlackBerry® 6.0 OS-enabled devices, or share directly to Facebook® and Twitter® if they’re installed on your device.

Message List integration:

For those of you who love to receive everything in your message list inbox, you have the option to receive new articles from specific feeds directly in your message list inbox. Just go to the Options menu, turn on Message List integration, and then set alerts on the feeds that you want to populate your message inbox.

BlackBerry® smartphone users tend to be heavy consumers of digital information, and BlackBerry News Feeds is a fantastic tool to allow users to stay up-to-date on the things that they care about in their lives. This free application is available for download as a beta on BlackBerry App World™ today. We would love to hear your thoughts on what additional features you’d like to see in the application.

* BlackBerry News Feeds application is available on BlackBerry smartphones running BlackBerry Device Software 4.6 and above in North America.