One of the frustrations that many Google Reader users experience is with the sharing feature. Back in December, Google Reader and Google Talk became "Friends." This meant that any time you went to share an item, all of your friends on your Google Talk list were able to see what you shared. There was no way to select who you wanted to be able to view a shared item.
It's been a long time coming, but it looks as though we might have our first full-fledged desktop feed reader that supports synchronization with Google Reader. The RSS Bandit blog announced over the weekend that they have released version 1.7 Alpha that is capable of downloading podcasts as well as synchronizing feeds with Google Reader.
Windows; Mac; One thing that has always amazed me is the fact that none of the desktop feed readers currently available synchronize with Google Reader. Maybe I'm wrong and I just haven't searched hard enough, but we're getting a little closer with ReadAir.
Google has always been pretty good about catering to iPhone users, and the Reader team is kicking it up a notch with a new AJAXy interface (pictured to the right). Other good news is that it's not only supposed to work with the iPhone, but any mobile device that has an advanced browser. You can even use it in your desktop browser if you feel so inclined (ex. works in Firefox).
Over the last several months and up until a couple of weeks ago, I was using Google Reader as my primary feed reader (prior to that was Feed Demon and currently it's NetNewsWire). While I enjoyed the simpleness of using it to read my news, I never got into any of the socialness like sharing items with friends.
Lifehacker just released a new version of their Better GReader Firefox extension. It brings all of the best Greasemonkey scripts for Google Reader under one roof, and by installing the extension you can enable up to 8 of scripts that will all enhance either the look or usability of Google Reader.
It's amazing to think about how much has changed with Google Reader since it was released back in October of 2005. They've done a great job of making some major revisions to the service by adding new features and tweaking the interface so that it's easier and more efficient to use.
It's not very often that Google takes something out of labs, especially not two services at the same time. The Google Lab is considered Google's "technology playground." Instead of saying that a service is in beta (aside from Gmail), they say it's in labs and not quite ready for "prime time." The two most recent graduates of labs include Google Reader, and GOOG-411.
One eagle-eyed member of the Google Blogoscoped forum noticed that there was a confidential video posted on Google Video today. The intended purpose of the video was for new Google employees (a.k.a. Nooglers), but it has since been removed. Luckily Google Operating System was on top of things and took down some of the Google Reader stats.
It was always ironic to me that Google specializes in search, yet they didn't offer a search option in Google Reader. The ability to search through feeds was one of those things that many Google Reader users said was needed, and now finally it's there.
