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Still so very impressed with Google Reader. It’s changed the way I read the web and I thought I was pretty good at that already.

While I felt like I  was on information overload with Bloglines with 117 feeds, since switching to Google Reader a couple months ago my subscriptions have spiraled up to 243 in Google Reader in a short time and I still find myself looking for new stuff to add. With Bloglines I always kept an eye out for subscriptions I could drop. That’s such a nice change.

Here’s my obligatory braindump feedback:

• They shold integrate Google bookmarks. I hit “share” on any item that I kind of like, which then creates this useless feed. It would be great if I could quickly Google bookmark this stuff, which Google could then do nice stuff for me with — let me search, syndicate, personalize my search based off of it, remind me of it later. I also find myself wanting to “share” stuff when not inside of Reader, such as for sites that only offer excerpts in their feeds.
• Integrate with Gmail. No brainer here. I’m using integrate with gmail greasemonkey script, but it lacks a level of awesome integration that could exist.
• I wish “v” would open in new tabs in the background instead of focusing on them. Not sure if this is anything they can do much about, but I WANTS IT.
• That “Loading…” screen gets old real fast and I’ve been using Google Reader for a while now. Could use some speed improvements.
• Better blog search. Lately I find myself going to Bloglines to find feeds to subscribe to in Google Reader. How weird is that?
• Everyone has complained about it, but the whole tags/folders/labels issue at Google is confusing. I can understand not wanting to use the word “tags” — it’s a little jarring for the moms of the world. But like, I tag a post and it makes a folder (with a different icon) on the left side. And the “tag” then shows up under “change folders” in the Feed actions pulldown. I don’t get it.
• Speaking of tagging entries, I don’t get what the point of tagging entries is. Why would I do this? What is it for?
• Also don’t get starring versus sharing. Starring seems to just be sharing without an RSS feed. What’s the point? (Full disclosure: I also don’t really get starring things in Gmail, but having a share option makes it more obvious.)
• It would be nice to prioritize my feeds a bit. Some (like friend’s blogs, important news sites) I’d like to see first thing when I hit “all items”. Others, like ebay searches I’m tracking can hang out near the bottom. Maybe just let me prioritize certain folders instead of individual blogs, that’d be good enough for me.
• A few feeds like to show up as new all the time. Pitchfork and Technorati searches for two.

Also may I also say I’m tired of comics not offering their comic image in their feeds.

Posted on - November 30, 2006 [at] 10:59 pm by Brad
Tagged in - review

• Stuff I've been up to
• Teenar

8 Comments on this post

xmanoel on Google Reader
December 1, 2006 at 4:52 am

Just a correction… Starred items have a feed as well. I just use the starred items and hardly ever the ‘shared items’… but for the links I feel to share and also for the ones I woud like to keep.

Brad on Google Reader
December 1, 2006 at 8:49 am

Oh cool, thanks! I didn’t realize you had to go to the settings and enable sharing.

Now I REALLY don’t get what the point of the shared/starred items is.

jason on Google Reader
December 1, 2006 at 9:50 am

i’m guessing that many comics don’t have the image in the feed because the bandwidth of offering up the comics needs to be paid for by advertising. Plus, given the growing number of professional web cartoonists, advertising and other site links to their merch are what pays the bills. SO I can’t fault them at all.

marcus on Google Reader
December 1, 2006 at 11:07 am

that comics kind of issue is what the huge drag is for me. a lot of feeds only have digests to show the first paragraph then an ellipsis. that doesn’t help me at all, to open a page meant to read everything I want and then find I have to click eighteen things. I’d rather just go to the things to begin with.

Matt Hite on Google Reader
December 1, 2006 at 1:28 pm

I am going to pimp my favorite RSS reader site:

http://www.newshutch.com

Give it a try!

John Marshall on Google Reader
December 2, 2006 at 9:39 am

“They shold integrate Google bookmarks.”

There’s a greasemonkey script for that
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/6497

jason on Google Reader
December 5, 2006 at 5:46 pm

I had never really used Google Reader before. Imported all my RSS feeds (they need a tool that you can use to import RSS feeds from a Firefox bookmarks folder or something so I could have just imported everything from Sage easily…)

I’m loving it. You were right when you said your subscriptions have went up. I’ve been able to more easily skim my subscriptions and keep track of them, leading me to more subscriptions.

Love the idea of integration with GMail, that way I could have everything on one page instead of two Firefox tabs.