WebProNews » feed readers

Google Finally Releases Google Reader Android App

Chris Crum — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:14:11 +0000

Google has finally released an Android app for Google Reader, and as the company acknowledges itself, "It’s been a long time coming." I couldn’t agree more as a user. I already use a bookmark for Google Reader probably more than any app on my phone, so having an actual app for it should be pretty nice.

I’ve often wondered why they didn’t already have one, and was starting to wonder if they just didn’t care. After all, RSS never really caught on at an incredibly mainstream level. Sure, most blogs offer feeds, but at the user level, I’m not sure they ever accomplished the kind of usage some expected when they were first taking off.

Then Twitter and Facebook emerged as adequate news-reader-like tools that were just easier to understand for the average user (at least the average user of these services).

Interestingly enough, I was already thinking about this today as I was covering Ask’s release of the top ten questions and answers of 2010. The company had also released top ten most popularly answered questions for several different verticals, and number six on the Technology/Internet list was, "What is an RSS feed?"

As if on cue, now Google has put out an app for its feed reader on its burgeoning mobile operating system (it’s tied with Apple’s iOS in terms of desirability according to a new report from Nielsen).

The new Google Reader app supports unread counts, friends, sharing, linking, and starring, as well as multiple accounts, synced preferences, full subscription features (subscribe and search from your phone), and search.

Google also highlights a couple of "harder to discover" features like volume-key navigation, long-press on a folder or subscription to bring up menus, and the ability to hit the menu key on an individual item to use the "send" feature which integrates with other apps on your phone. This is helpful for sharing content on Twitter or Facebook or by email for example.

After messing around with the app for a few minutes, I have to say I prefer the interface to using the web version on the phone. However, it seems to be running a little sluggish, but I can’t say if that’s the app’s fault for sure, though other apps seem to be running fine. If you’re a Google Reader and an Android user, check it out. It’s free in the Market. Let us know what you think.

New Google Reader Feature Can Create a Feed for Any Site

Chris Crum — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:01:12 +0000

Google has launched a new feature for Google Reader that lets users create a custom feed to track changes on pages that don’t have their own feed. In other words, you can follow changes to any site.

"These custom feeds are most useful if you want to be alerted whenever a specific page has been updated," says Google’s Brian Shih. "For example, if you wanted to follow Google.org’s latest products, just type ‘http://www.google.org/products.html’ into Reader’s ‘Add a subscription’ field. Click "create a feed", and Reader will periodically visit the page and publish any significant changes it finds as items in a custom feed created just for that page."

Google points to examples like the Zillow home page, which would show new real estate listings, a Macy’s special offers page, which would keep one informed of the latest special offers, and the NYU Computer Science Department page, which features news and highlights. You can certainly see the possibilities that this feature could open up. If data overload was a problem for you before, this probably isn’t going to help. However, if you are looking to stay informed and up to date on even more web content, this might be just the ticket.

This new feature appears to solve any potential problems that could arise in the future with relation to the dying of RSS feeds. I’m not saying that they’re dying, but some think they will, and if sites stop putting out RSS feeds, a feature like this would presumably allow you to continue using your feed reader to follow those sites anyway.

The feature provides short snippets of page changes so users can decide if the changes are enough to make the page worth going to. If you have a site, and you don’t want Google to crawl or create feeds for it, you can opt-out. To do so, Google says you can:

Add a tag to any page you don’t want available in Reader. Google compares the cached and current versions of your page to determine if that page has been updated. Adding the NOARCHIVE meta tag will prevent Google from caching your page.
Use robots.txt to block Googlebot from crawling your site. (You can block your entire site, or a file or directory.) However, if you decide to block Googlebot, your content will not be available to appear in search results. Doing this will not remove the previously generated feed from Reader, but Reader will stop generating feeds after this measure has been taken.

There are a few things that can prevent a site from being picked up by this feature. It only supports English-language content in HTML. Updates to content in iFrames and updates to content that requires signing in to view are not detected.

Related Articles:

> Google Reader’s Mobile Interface Upgraded

> Google Makes Google Reader More Personal

> Google Reader Gets Much-Needed Social Features

Google Makes Google Reader More Personal

Chris Crum — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:00:05 +0000

Update: Google has also now added favicons to feeds in Google Reader.

Original Article: Google has added some new things to Google Reader in order to deliver a more personalized experience for the user. The company compares the features to how personalized search improved search results based on search history. Google thinks the new changes will have a similar affect on users’ reading experience.

In Google Reader, there is a new "Explore" section that appears under the "People You Follow" section. Within this section are the previously existing recommendations feature and a new one – "Popular items."

"We use algorithms to find top-rising images, videos and pages from anywhere (not just your subscriptions), collect them in the new Popular items section and order them by what we think you’ll like best," explains Google’s Beverly Yang. "Now you don’t have to be embarrassed about missing that hilarious video everyone is talking about — it should show up in your ‘Popular items’ feed automatically."

"And to make it easier to find interesting feeds, we’re moving recommendations into the new Explore section and giving it a new name — ‘Recommended sources,’" she adds. "Like always, it uses your Reader Trends and Web History (if you’re opted into Web History) to generate a list of feeds we think you might like."

Apart from the new Explore section, Google has also added personalized ranking to feeds. There is a new sort option called "magic," that re-orders items in the feed based on your personal usage and overall activity in Google Reader. This can be accessed by clicking "sort by magic," under the "feed settings," menu of a particular feed or folder.

"Unlike the old ‘auto’ ranking, this new ranking is personalized for you, and gets better with time as we learn what you like best — the more you ‘like’ and ‘share’ stuff, the better your magic sort will be," says Yang. "Give it a try on a high-volume feed folder or All items and see for yourself!"

It’s going to be interesting using Google’s new personalization features in Reader moving forward. It should be a good way to determine just how well Google really does know users. Unlike searches, which are prone to be much more random, Reader is a more intimate experience, where users frequently return to specific topics and sources. This does occur in search to some extent, but the very nature of searching means you’re looking for something wherever you can find it in most cases (not counting just being lazy and searching for specific domains).

Google Reader Gets Much Needed Social Features

Chris Crum — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:30:25 +0000

Google has added a number of new features to Google Reader. The biggest one, which is long overdue, is the ability to share content on other social networks. This seems like it should have been available for ages, but it has been MIA until now.

If you go to the settings page in Google Reader, find the Send To tab. From there, you can select other services to send your shared items to. Then you can easily share content via Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. as you come across it in Google Reader.

Another new feature is the ability to easily subscribe to feeds from the people you follow. If you click on one of your followers, you can see the feeds they have included in their Google Profile (if any), and you can go from there. Another option is to click the "From people you follow" tab on the "Browse for stuff" page.

Another noticeable new feature in Google Reader is the addition of more options under "Mark as Read." You now get a pull-down menu, which lets you select whether you want to mark all items as read, or just the ones that are older than a day, a week, or two weeks.

In addition to these features, when you expand an item in comment view, you can now get the full set of actions (share, like, star), without leaving comment view. They’ve also added a "Feeds" start-page option for the iPhone/Android/Pre mobile interface, and an option to show notes when embedding shared items on other pages as clips.

How Google Reader Sharing Contributes to Real Time Search

Chris Crum — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:15:08 +0000

Google has announced that Google Reader has begun adoption of the PubSubHubbub protocol for shared items. This is a simple, open, server-to-server web-hook based pubsub (publish/subscribe) protocol, as defined on this Google Code page.

Here’s a visual overview of what that means:

"All shared item pages have feeds, and now all of those feeds will ping a hub (and there’s a element in them)," explains Mihai Parparita on the Google Reader Blog. "This means that if you (as a web app developer) would like to more efficiently and quickly monitor Reader shares, you just have to subscribe at the hub to be notified of changes in real-time. If you want to learn more about PubSubHubbub and how it works, see the site and protocol definition."

Google names FriendFeed specifically as a place that takes advantage of such pinging. If you have added your shared items to your FriendFeed account, you and your friends will see them there in real-time. This means they will appear in FriendFeed’s real-time search engine.

Adding the PubSubHubbub support was one of the famous 20% projects of a few Googlers. They cite the project as a contributor to making the web a faster place, which of course is a big initiative of Google these days.

Google to Handle NewsGator RSS Products

Chris Crum — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:28:54 +0000

Google Reader is becoming the online companion to and synchronization platform for NewsGator’s RSS readers including FeedDemon and NetNewsWire. Users have until August 31 to migrate to Google Reader, when NewsGator will shut down NewsGator Online.

To migrate RSS subscriptions, FeedDemon/NetNewsWire users will need to:

1. Download the latest version of FeedDemon/NetNewsWire

2. Sign up for a Google Reader account

3. Associate the Google Reader account with the FeedDemon/NetNewsWire product (A step-by-step wizard is provided within the new version of FeedDemon/NetNewsWire

There are different instructions for other NewsGator products here. NewsGator says on the company blog:

Users of FeedDemon, NetNewsWire for Mac, and NetNewsWire for the iPhone will have 30 days to download new versions of these applications that can synchronize with Google Reader. Syncing will give you a consistent reading experience across your PC, Mac, iPhone, and web browser. For example, if you add a new RSS feed, organize your folders, or mark some stories as read on one device, the changes will immediately reflect across the others. Users of NewsGator Go! can select from the mobile RSS reader options that synchronize with Google Reader.

The bottom line for you: we keep improving our client applications, and now you can sync with and use the web based RSS reader you’ve been asking for. We’ve been working with the Google team to make these changes as smooth as possible, and they are thrilled to welcome all NewsGator users to the Reader family.

New versions of FeedDemon and NetNewsWire are currently available, and a new version of NetNewsWire for the iPhone will be available soon. Check out the FAQ page for more information about changes to NewsGator’s RSS reader products.

Google Reader Gets More Social With Commenting

Chris Crum — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:40:35 +0000

Google has added a lot of sharing-based features to Google Reader in recent memory, but it has now launched the ability to have conversations among those who are sharing items. Google acknowledges that this is a key element of sharing that the service has been lacking. I would have to agree.

The feature allows you to have private discussions with friends on shared items. "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!" says Jenna Bilotta at the Google Reader Blog. Users can comment on any item that they shared or that is shared with them.

There is also a new comment view, which is optimized for tracking conversations and commenting. This mode sorts your list of items by most recent comment. Comment View appears in bold text when there are new comments. When you click on "Expand this item" you can read the entire text.

Comment icons appear on top of friends’ profile pictures in list view or expanded view in Google Reader. Obviously that means there are new comments.

In cases in which more than one person shares the same item with you, they will appear as separarate entities with separate conversations.

The release is only in the English language at this point. Comments can only be seen by those who shared the items. Comments aren’t available in the "All Items" view, but Google has a lot more planned for the comments feature, the company says. Google notes that users can read and add comments from their iPhones.

Now Google Reader is part of the "the conversation." And Google continues to get more social. If only RSS would catch on the mainstream, this could be more relevant in the social media space.

Google Rolls Out Reader Improvements

Chris Crum — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:17:19 +0000

Back in December, Google rolled out a redesign of Google Reader. Opinions were mixed (naturally), but I think it went pretty well overall. I know I’ve gotten used to it.

Still, there were some bugs and other things that could have used improvement. Google was not oblivious to this, and has taken the time to deliver some fixes and improvements. A post from the Google Reader Blog indicates that the new release includes the following:

- Improvements to rich mobile interface for iPhone, Android and other browsers, including a more compact page header, visual alignment tweaks and a faster loading time.

– Links on the home page giving you easy access to your recently read and kept unread items.

– Fixes for some "stuck" unread count issues.

– Better handling of feeds and items with malformed URLs.

– Less flickering when using the "Share with note" bookmark.

– Fixing of errors when deleting lots of tags and folders.

– Removal of extra image and backend requests, resulting in slightly faster loading times.

The Google Reader Team (like most of Google’s teams) is always looking for feedback, and has a discussion group for it. They’re also encouraging users to follow them on Twitter.

Embedded Video Woes and Google Reader

Chris Crum — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:00:39 +0000

Ever had trouble getting your embedded videos to show up in Google Reader? You’re not alone. Apparently your site has to be on a whitelist for it to work for you. For example, YouTube videos work, because YouTube is on the list. WordPress videos don’t, because WordPress is not on the list.

Somebody complained about the problem in a Google Groups post, and was met with a response from a Google Reader Engineeer, Mihai Parparita:

We have taken a whitelist approach to embedded video, thus we’ll need to include WordPress for its embeds to show up. This should happen in the next Reader release.

"So in case you were wondering, apparently you need to request to be whitelisted," says Tamar Weinberg at Search Engine Roundtable. "The policy isn’t exactly clear on how you get your site added to the whitelist, nor is it indicated whether this whitelist is publicly accessible. I suppose that just means that you need to be on top of Google Groups (for now) in order for Google to consider your site whitelisted."

I wonder when the next release of Google Reader is scheduled to come out. It sounds like this problem will likely be improved upon in it, even beyond just WordPress sites.

"Thanks for the suggestions. We’re actually currently working on ways to make it easier to submit embedded media players for verification and eventual inclusion in Reader," says Roger with the Google Reader Team. "We’ve proceeded cautiously due to security concerns but are always looking for ways to make using Reader a richer experience. Thanks for bringing this to the forefront."

I have to say I’m a little surprised that this issue hasn’t been addressed in the past. It’s not like embedded video or Google Reader are in their infancies. Oh well, one day at a time. There’s always room for improvement.

Google Reader Interface Improved

Chris Crum — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:00:50 +0000

Google Reader has undergone some changes. The objective seems to have been to simplify things and give the whole thing a cleaner look and feel. While I’m sure the changes will still receive their share of critics, I for one am generally pleased with the update. Let’s take a look at the changes.

First off, if you can’t find something that is supposed to be there:

- The "Refresh" button from the subscription list is now in the Subscriptions options menu or triggered by simply clicking on the word "Subscriptions"

– The "Show all – updated" controls are now in the Subscriptions options menu.

– The "Add subscription" button has moved to the top of the navigation pane.

Now, they have changed the design itself slightly, and I think the cleaner look and feel was accomplished by this:

(old)

(new)

They have turned the navigation menus in the left-hand side bar into their own windows and made them collapsible. This is easily my favorite change they have made. It allows me to get a better view of my actual feeds by minimizing the top two menus. In addition, the shared items section is now its own window, and can be treated as its own section accordingly. Each section also has its own options menu.

One feature that apparently a lot of people were asking for, is the ability not to see how many unread feeds you have waiting for you. Some people feel like this makes reading feeds a chore, which I can understand, although, I still prefer to know how many I have unread even if I know there is no possible way I will will actually get through them. This can be found in the options for the main feeds section.

Last but not least, they have improved the "feed bundles". They used to bundle feeds by hand, but now have a program making bundles for them. They say there is now a "much richer and interesting set of subscriptions for you to choose from." You can find the bundles under the "Browse for stuff" link in the main navigation window.

Google users are not always thrilled when changes are forced upon them, a fact driven home when they rolled out the iGoogle changes. These changes are far less intrusive than those though, and I don’t expect nearly that amount of complaining over these. For those who want to give feedback, however, you can do so in this discussion group.