Multisite News Widget

I’ve installed a multisite network and created a theme for theme. Off course the content of the blogs is different, but I would like to use some sort of ‘news widget’ on the blogs, displaying all the same.
It’s on the upper right corner on https://test.d-serv.nl/activiteiten/

So i’m wondering which method you suggest.

So far I thought of:
1. Post blog items on the master blog, fetch them by rss.
Problem: how do i count the length of the text?

2. Create a custom options panel, in which news can be inserted.
Problem: I know how to make such a panel, but don’t know if it’s possible to use the editor functions and store news message after news message, including links

3. Start a twitter account and import the twitter updates
Problem: a good twitter account should have daily updates. News would only be added on weekly base.

Hopefully you could help me decide which option i should use, or give me some more options. Thanks for thinking with me!