Google has released a new version of Reader that’s been tweaked a bit. Google has added a new set of tabs in the trends page called “Friends Trends,” where you can see which friends share the most content and whose shared items you read.
Another change relates to the comments feature, which is now available to Reader’s non-English users. Google says that sources of items in Reader are now visible in the comment view and makes it easier to mark items as saved.
Google says that it has focused this new version on improving the user experience by recently revamping the new user page that tries to help beginners to understand how Reader works. In addition to a welcome video and a tutorial, Reader points out the kinds of feeds that you can subscribe to. Google now lets you import feeds from your iGoogle page, making it easier for those who have existing iGoogle accounts to seamlessly integrate feeds between the two products.
Reader’s mobile interface also got a little makeover in the new version. You can now post notes from the mobile version and Google has fixed a bug that plagues non-Android phones causing items not to be marked as read correctly.
We recently wrote about Google Reader’s limitations as a social platform. Google recently launched several social features, including the ability to share items with friends of friends, and this new version also adds extra social functionality but the application still has awhile to go before it masters the social world.