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 http://www.google.com/reader/shared/14881661495900338150. 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. In addition, there is also a way to add a link to your Google Reader Shared Items from your Google Profile page now.
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. Another new feature is that you can protect your Shared Items to allow only those you want to be able to see to view them. This has long been an issue among users who wanted to share items, but didn’t want to share them with the whole world. For example, now if you just want to share items with coworkers (such as work-related feed items), you can do that. This is all based around your contact filters in Google Contacts.
But the biggest change to the sharing of items in Google Reader is that you can now “Like” items. Yes, this is the same functionality that FriendFeed has long had, and that Facebook implemented as well a few months ago. “Liking” an item is as easy as clicking one mouse button (or hitting the “L” key if you have keyboard shortcuts turned on). And since all “likes” are public, everyone who uses Google Reader can see them. I think this may be the first new feature that I’ve seen in a long time from the Reader team that may actually spur social usage of the product, as “liking” something is much easier than leaving a comment.
It’s worth noting that while you can now more easily open up your Shared Items for anyone to see, only your contacts will be able to comment on them. For now, these new features are only in the English version of Google Reader, Google notes.
The question is, are these features enough to reverse, or at least slow, the trend we’re seeing of people consuming more and more of their content through places like Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed? Probably not, but it’s a good attempt in the right direction, at least. More interesting to us is the possibility of speeding up RSS, which the new push protocol called pubsubhubbub, which was shown off at our Real-Time Stream CrunchUp event, promises. This is something Google Reader badly needs if it’s to compete.
I’ve been using Google Reader a lot less lately. I prefer reading my stuff in Feedly now, if I even care about RSS. Usually I see the best stuff in FriendFeed, which is how I found this item. My audience in FriendFeed is a lot bigger than my audience in Google Reader, though.
Nice Robert. it’s good to know that you are still a strong voice for FriendFeed. For me, I am still deciding which is the best to use. Will probably need more time to play with both.
Robert – try http://tFeeder.com, it’s a technology news aggregator, using Twitter to decide, in realtime, how ‘hot’ a story is. It’s a huge timesaver – all top technology blogs and media outlets are there with a single click keyword search.
You can also see who’s leading the way in terms of avg. tweets-per-post by writer and by blog.
Anyway, we’ll add your blog to our list.
Robert, what is the difference between “like” and “share” as I don’t get this. I am real busy with Google Wave right now but if I am confused, then others are too. Can you expand on this?
Is this like a Digg rather than a shout (when there were shouts)?
As far a “Google’s social features having allot to be desired”, Give it a while, Google Wave will change most of what you think is really going on.
@MG Siegler, as far as the “ridiculous shared items URL” is in not for public consumption, it is to supply out bound readers (not GR) a RSS feed and access for spiders to index the micro blogging platform.
Sure the URL sucks, but unlike the Google profiles issue, it does not matter, it is simply a URL that needs to be, so it is.
Third, you said that “now you can add shared items to Google profiles” like you could not do this before.
It has always been available going back to well over a year ago when the started offering Google profiles.
You should talk to Scoble or read his stuff, I don’t mean to be an ass here or attack you but this article is misleading.
Sounds like more TechCrunch Facebook Connect propaganda to me…
Also the “ridiculous shared items URL” issue is not resolved, here’s mine:
http://www.goog...hared/chrislang
This is also under the shared items settings I shared below in a reply.
A lot of us see great potential with Google Reader. I’m just shocked they’re taking this long to execute these “social” initiatives.
Agreed, Feedly is my reader of choice, I sometimes forget gReader is behind it. I toyed with using Evernote as a sharing platform, but no 2-way communication, just push. So Evernote remains my ever beloved workflow publisher with my team, and Feedly goes out to the interwebs.
My good friends and I are using Reader as our primary social network. Facebook is still there for the wider friend circle, and Twitter is for the larger “public” audience. I’m really happy that Google has been investing all of this effort into developing social features for Reader this year.
MG – do you have any usage numbers for Google Reader? From personal experience, it used to be my number one destination for technews (which i would hammer on mobile, especially) but now it has been replaced by twitter. I realized only this morning that i havent been to G-reader – mobile or web – for over a week. And yet that has been a very busy week for technews consumption pertinent to “my world” (realtime crunch up, etc). Broadly, i treat the two products alike (effectively, i follow people and/or blogs to curate a personalized news stream) and yet twitter’s speed and social environment mean i’m using g-reader less and less. I wonder if other’s have a similar experience? I guess this “flight to fast and social” is what the g-reader team is trying to combat? I look forward to checking it out (I might even tweet about my experience
don’t know the usage numbers tobias, but i do know a lot, and i do mean a lot, of people who are saying the exact same thing as you. use of twitter/facebook/etc is making them forget about rss readers.
@Tobias, I agree wholeheartedly, but Reader is way more focused, Twitter can waste your whole day very easily.
I use Google Reader for my source, I use Twitter for breaking news and competitive intelligence.
Maybe I’m just getting old but I still get better information via RSS than I do Twitter/Facebook/Friendfeed when it comes to signal vs noise. Besides, most of the links people are posting in these networks are due to them seeing the article via a RSS Reader. Ironically I even pull RSS feeds of people like Scoble & MG so I don’t miss anything from key people. I just need Google Reader to give me better filter options.
Don’t count anything out or be too hasty to dismiss a service. I remember when I used Netscape and thought nothing could ever replace. We all know that IE did. I believe Google has a greater game plan and that things we’ve been hearing about lately, like this and “Wave” are components of a bigger internet “cyber spac station” Google is building… watch!
Pretty slick!
Call me people!
Best use of google voice: 805-768-4521 http://bit.ly/oBsDJ
Where do I find that People Serach?
Click on “Sharing Settings” and scroll down to “Find More People”.
Or use this link:
http://www.goog...-search/clinton
I can’t find the People Search, either.
Go to Google Reader….
Click “your stuff”
Then on the right of the sharing box in your profile header is “sharing settings” and the search box is the 4th item down.
How is “Like” any different than “Star”, except that everyone can see your likes?
Oh god it’s horrible. get it off get it OFF.
I don’t care how many people “liked this”.
How do I remove it?
Sorry, Joshua. You will be force-fed social networking until you die from gagging on your own vomit … and YOU WILL LIKE IT!!! Got that?
For a long time I could not stand Social either, but right now email newsletter delivery to double opt in lists is at an all time low because ISPs have spam filters cranked up to hell and back. (thank the Conficker worm)
Legitimate email alerts to people who want them and signed up to them are getting hit with false positives and not delivered at all.
Hence many of us publishers have had to embrace new platforms. I hate the way Twitter can waste my day, but things change. Some of us as blog publishers have NO choice.
Not to mention Google and Microsoft are at war over Facebook vs Google social (friend connect).
I *share* what i *like* on Google Reader, so I don’t understand the new “like” feature…
[But I think the improvements are really great]
I like it a lot, with comments/likes displayed in the feed – services like Disqus need to find a way to bring that interaction back to the source!!
Just noticed this feature. I really don’t see the interest of this stuff right now
Google really needs to make starred items searchable. I have over 2000 starred items that i do not have the time to tag or look through all at once. And with search, and/or organization by folder, name, date starred, etc., google reader would become the king of readers (atleast for me)
I have preferred GR for some time and have started to blend in the social aspect by sharing items I like. I generally use Reader to find what I’d like to share on Twitter, FB, and social bookmarking networks. I think I finally have a system down that works.
Maybe it’s already there and I’m missing it (I’m sure Chris will tell me) is the ability to just click on one of my FriendConnect friends and follow what they share. Do I have to do the whole people search to add them?
By the way, I found this article from the shared stories of two friends in Google Reader.