It looks like Google just updated their Feed Reader Module for the Google Personalized Homepage. I’m sure that this is to help compete with Netvibes who offers an amazing built-in feed reader for their customizable homepage. The screenshot above demonstrates how the Feed Reader Module works.
As you can see each of the items can be expanded/contracted so that you can read the feed items without ever leaving the homepage. One thing that I did notice was that the module will display summaries of an article if the feed supplies them, instead of displaying the entire article. We want to give everyone the best experience possible when reading the feed from the Google Personalized Homepage so we have removed these summaries from the feed. This means that after Google erases the cached version of our feed (probably after we post this article) it will start to display the full article when expanding them.
Before you all go rushing to check your homepage for the new feature, it does look like they are rolling it out to the accounts. One of my accounts has it but some of the others don’t, and sometimes if you logout and then log back in you’ll receive it. You can also try switching browsers because the account that I used to take the screenshot above displayed the updated module fine in Firefox, then when I refreshed the page it was gone. I switched over to Internet Explorer and then the feature popped back up. I think it is just temperamental right now, but I’m sure all of the kinks will be worked out soon.
P.S. This is not some separate module I have installed…it is a real update by Google.
Thanks for the tip Eric!
What I really like is that the added the time. I’m not sure why but I like to know when the article was published.
Over all, it’s a great update that makes using the Google Personalized Homepage more enjoyable.
I’m not seeing the full article nor the summary when expanded.
I think that they did a good job making the change subtle while adding a big feature. It’s not like I would now look at the module and wonder what the heck it is. Honestly, I think I might like it better than the Netvibes feed reader because it lets me read articles more quickly without switching between the module and full-screen mode.
Yep, I just noticed that as well, my little “hack” went backwards…I’ll go ahead and hopefully fix it this time.
Okay, just changed the feed so hopefully it works.
*crosses fingers*
Sweet, it works.
Yay! It does!
I like how the expandable box is nice and compact so that it doesn take up the whole site. It would be nice if they had a link to open that particular article in a pop-out box though, in case it is really long. I guess that would just encourage people to visit the site to read it though.