A flurry of features for feed readers. Posted by Brian Shih, Product Manager Since our last big launch, we've been thinking about ways to help our users better share, discover, and consume content in Reader. Today, I'm happy to announce several new features that we hope will further improve the way you use Reader. Send to... We've made it easier to share posts you like to Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, and more, with our new "Send to" feature. To share an item on one of your sites, simply click the "Send to" button and choose your service. Feeds from people you follow When we added following, we tried to make it easier to find and follow people who share similar interests.
To quickly subscribe to these sites, click the "From people you follow" tab on the "Browse for stuff" page. More control for mark all as read We know people can be overwhelmed by too many unread items, and sometimes only want to see recent posts. Finally, a few small tweaks in this release: The Pushbutton Web Now in Google Reader - Google Reader - Lifehacker. Google Reader's Magic Finds Personalized Highlights In Feeds. If you're a normal carbon-based life form and not an always-on robot like me, you probably don't want to spend the entirety of your day dialed in to the Web, reading every single article in the fear that you might miss something. It might make more sense instead that you get the best of the Web, tailored just for you, sent your way - be that through the use of human filters, or through software that can determine what you like, either through explicit or implicit actions.
Following the lead of My6sense, which debuted earlier this year, Google Reader introduced a new feature today, called "Magic" that finds the best offerings in your subscriptions and brings them to the surface. And it works! The service also increased the visibility of recommended feeds, and showed the most popular stories from around the Web - all part of making the RSS reader more personal. (Note I also asked for these features way back in March of 2007.)
When Sorted by "Magic", You Can See I Share Those Items Most. Google Reader Takes Another Social Step With People Search And “Likes” As we’ve noted for some time, Google Reader’s social features leave a lot to be desired. The search giant is slowly moving in the right direction towards making shared items more accessible between friends, but it’s still rather clunky.
Today, the functionality receives yet another upgrade, including one that may finally spur social usage — “liking” items. Beginning today, you can search for people who are sharing items via Google Reader. Previously, people either had to be in your contact list or you had to share your ridiculous Shared Items URL. For example, mine is But now, someone can just go and search for “MG Siegler” and my name will pop up with an option to subscribe to my items with one click. But at the same time that Google is opening up its social features a bit more on Google Reader, it is also allowing you to lock them down more as well. Google Reader is your new watercooler. Posted by Jenna Bilotta, User Experience Designer One of the things that we love best about Reader is the ability to easily share interesting items with your friends. In fact, we like it so much that we've been adding bunches of new sharing features over the last year including choosing friends to share with, sharing with note and the sharing bookmarklet.
But we quickly realized that one of the most important pieces of the sharing cycle was missing: the ability to have conversations with friends about all those shared items. With our new conversation feature, you can have private discussions on shared items with your friends. Now, instead of obsessively asking everyone in your office if they have seen that awesome lego cake article you shared last night, they can tell you how awesome you are, right within Google Reader! What's new with this feature: You can comment on any items that you share or that have been shared by your friends.
Some things to keep in mind: New Media Chatter » Blog Archive » Are You Using Google Reader’s Share Button?