Now that the smoke has cleared, some have noticed the “new and improved” Google Reader has been involved with all kinds of system slowdowns and computer freezes, which reduces Reader’s usability quotient even further; or, if you’re like me and have also experienced these Google Reader-caused glitches, the reaction to these hiccups are a little too colorful for this article. With that in mind, it appears as if the culprit behind these systems overloads has been found, and if the theory is correct, Google+ button is to blame.

According to a post at Geeks are Sexy, it was recently discovered that, when the author was using Google Reader, the platform was eating up a gigabyte of RAM, which led to the following realization:

It turns out the most likely cause of the specific memory problems is related to Google adding a Google+ button for every article. There’s some sort of issue with the link, which is being multiplied by the number of articles in your message pane to create the slowdown.

So, if you’re like me and use your Reader to open up multiple browser tabs with the stories that caught your eye, Google is busy trying to place a +1 button on all of these articles, which seems to be what’s causing user’s computer to slow and/or freeze, both of which I’ve directly experienced.

To address this situation, the referenced article suggest a workaround that should improve Reader’s usability, or, at least, how your computer reacts when Reader is open. Essentially, you’ll need to add an additional filter to whatever ad blocking application you’re using. According to Geeks are Sexy, the address to be added is as follows:

plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton

According to the post’s author, this added filter has improved the overall functionality of Google Reader, reducing, if not completely eliminating any Google Reader-inspired slowdowns or crashes. For those of you how have experienced the slowdown issue whenever using Google Reader, try this little ad block tweak and see if it makes a difference.

Let us know if you have any luck.

That is, one that seems to say, “we know what’s best for our users, even better than they do,” or, perhaps, Google simply adopted a “deal with it.” Whatever the case, Google hasn’t had much in the way of reaction to the negativity surrounding the unpopular Google Reader alterations, which only supports the “deal with it” attitude, whether it’s an accurate portrayal of Google’s position or not. One person who has been following the Google Reader story closely is Kevin Fox, who was the lead designer on Google Reader 2.0.

In a post at Fury.com, it’s apparent Fox is also disappointed with the updated Reader, and he also supports the belief these redesigns are simply a push for design uniformity among the various Google products:

I believe this has happened because Google Reader was held to a mandate of refreshing Google products under a common style guide, but from what I’ve been told it had no full-time user experience resource to apply that guide in a way that made sense for the nuances and needs of that particular product.

If the rumors Fury discusses are true, this means Google implemented its Reader redesign without the input of Google Reader users, including the ones who are already employed by the company. If that is indeed the case, it’s no wonder the alterations are being met with disapproval. Imagine if Facebook implemented a redesign developed by a non-Facebook using designer. Since the reaction to any Facebook change is always negative, if a non-Facebook user implemented such a sweeping redesign, the negativity would be increased to nuclear fallout levels.

But yet, apparently Google did the same thing when it redesigned Google Reader, or, well, made it match the overall look and feel the company is striving for. In light of this, Fox has once again offered his services to Google and is willing to fix what wasn’t broken before the redesign took over:

And so I put my resources where my mouth is. As the former lead designer for Google Reader, I offer my services to Google, rejoining for a three month contract in order to restore and enhance the utility of Google Reader, while keeping it in line with Google’s new visual standards requirements. I will put my current projects on hold to ensure that Google Reader keeps its place as the premier news reader, and raises the bar of what a social newsreader can be.

If Google allowed Fox to work his Reader magic, it sounds like Google would get the best of both worlds: Google Reader’s look and feel would match the overall theme Google is apparently committed to, and it would bring back the usability that made the utility so popular to begin with.

The question is, is Google willing to admit its error and allow Fox under the hood or will the company be bound by its own hubris and let the potential of Google Reader erode away?

What do you think of the Google Reader redesign? Let us know in the comments.

Believe it or not, a lot of people are unhappy with the new design. This is fairly commonplace for redesigns in general, but users of Google products would probably do well to get used to it, if they’re not already, because I have a feeling we’ll be seeing plenty more Google+-related design changes for various products in the near future.

Google has committed to Google+. This isn’t Google Wave or Google Buzz. I think I can say with confidence that Google+ will not be gone next year. It’s changes like this Google Reader design and integration into other Google products that shows that Google+ is really just an extension of the Google account in general. It’s about the Google profile and the relationships that are connected to that (see things like Circle counts appearing in search results), and of course it’s about your identity.

So, taking it as Google being in it for the long haul with Google+, it’s understandable that Google+ get heavy integration with the social network. That said, there are plenty of justified complaints as well, and there is probably no better example of this than those from someone who actually used to work on the product.

Brian Shih, a former product manager for Google Reader, who left Google in July, wrote a rather scathing post about the redesign. He calls it a “disaster,” and says:

In the name of visual consistency, Google has updated the visual style to match Gmail, Calendar and Docs. I have nothing against visual consistency (and in fact, this something that Google should be doing), but it’s as if whoever made the update did so without ever actually using the product to, you know, read something.

…

Reader is a product built to consume information, quickly. We designed it to be very good at that one thing. G+ is an experience built around browsing (similar to Facebook) and socializing. Taking the UI paradigm for G+ and mashing it onto Reader without any apparent regard for the underlying function is awful and it shows.

…

Reader is a product built to consume information, quickly. We designed it to be very good at that one thing. G+ is an experience built around browsing (similar to Facebook) and socializing. Taking the UI paradigm for G+ and mashing it onto Reader without any apparent regard for the underlying function is awful and it shows.

He also criticizes the color scheme and the new sharing functionality, saying that it’s harder to share now.

In my opinion, sharing is still pretty easy. If you don’t want to share to Google+ (which is the easiest way to share, there are options for email and other social networks right next to it. Just go to “send to” from any post.

Still, Shih makes a great point about consuming information. To be honest, I can’t really put my finger on what it is about the design that makes it harder to do this, but it is harder – particularly when you’re browsing through feeds in list view. I think it might be a combination of the font and spacing. Whatever it is, I don’t see it as an improvement. Again, that’s just my opinion, but the redesign has been met with quite a bit of backlash. Here is some reaction from the Twitterverse:

There’s a petition that already has nearly 10,000 signatures to “save Google Reader”. That’s not too hard to believe, but people are even protesting with signs outside of Google’s D.C. headquarters:

Image credited to Leah Libresco

More on this (and more pictures) at dcist.

Not everyone hates the changes. When we asked our Facebook fans what they thought about the changes, we got responses like:

“Yes! I like it a lot. I think it’s aesthetically better and I like how all of your subscriptions come up on the home page/news feed.”

“ i use G Reader probably more than anyone in my day. The difference isn’t as drastic as many are saying it is. Didnt notice much but the colors and the new G Plus button. Didnt slow down my day any.”

and

Yeah it’s a massive improvement

There is plenty of defense of the changes on Twitter as well:

The following tweet brings up a good point:

Not all Google Reader users are Google+ users, so some of the new functionality is lost on them. But at the same time, Google is obviously trying to convert more non-Google+ users into Google+ users. Google Reader has been around a long time, so it’s very likely that they’ll succeed in this goal to some extent.

It’s just another Google+ gateway Google can get users to enter through, kind of like when they tied the YouTube account to the Google account, though in this case there is even less friction, because Google Reader users already have Google accounts. To sign up for Google+ is simply enabling another feature of the broader Google social network. Google could probably get a lot more Google+ users if they made this more clear (though I guess they are in some ways, by integrating it into all of their products).

I guess the real question is: should Google be integrating Google+ into all of its products? What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments.

“As a result of these changes, we also think it’s important to clean things up a bit,” says Google software engineer Alan Green. “Many of Reader’s social features will soon be available via Google+, so in a week’s time we’ll be retiring things like friending, following and shared link blogs inside of Reader.”

“We think the end result is better than what’s available today, and you can sign up for Google+ right now to start prepping Reader-specific circles,” Green says. “We recognize, however, that some of you may feel like the product is no longer for you. That’s why we will also be extending Reader’s subscription export feature to include the following items. Your data belongs to you, after all, and we want to make sure you can take it with you.”

That data includes: subscriptions, shared items, friends, likes and starred items.

We can also expect some changes to Gmail pretty soon from the looks of it. Google has uploaded a video with a closer look at the Gmail redesign announced back in the summer. More on that here.

Do you want to see Google make changes to Google Reader? Let us know in the comments.

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. 

Google posted a couple of graphs today showing how use continues to grow from year to year. 

"Since Reader’s fifth anniversary is also approaching (though it feels like yesterday, Reader was launched on October 7, 2005), we thought it might be a good time to reflect on how Reader has grown over the past few years. While we were busy redesigning (twice!), making friends with Buzz and iGoogle, translating, breaking up, gossiping and playing, more and more people picked up the Reader habit," writes Google’s Mihai Parparita. 

Unfortunately, Google doesn’t let it be known just how many people are using Google, but there is clearly an upward trend. They do say that users are counted as someone who uses Reader once a week. That is depicted in this graph:

 This graph shows number of items read per day:

 It would appear that as more people use Reader, they are also reading more within Reader. 

Regardless of the numbers, Google is aiming to pick up Bloglines’ leftovers. The company is encouraging users to import their Bloglines feeds into Google Reader.

Another new feature is the "not interested" option for Google Reader’s recommended items. This lets you hide these items and let Google get a better idea of the kinds of things you aren’t into so it can make the recommendations better going forward.

"Reader is the kind of application that people keep open in a tab all day," says Google’s Mihai Parparita. "While it’s flattering that our users are so dedicated, we want to make sure that they don’t miss out on any new features and bug fixes that we release. We’ve therefore added a small banner that appears whenever we release a new version. If you’re in the middle of something, you can ignore it (and it’ll go away for a while), but if not, newest and shinier things are just a click away. Incidentally, today we built the 500th version of Reader; over the 5 years that we’ve worked on Reader, that works out to almost two builds a week."

"Finally, we’ve done a few other small things, like the Home view loading faster, and the Send to functionality being less susceptible to being stymied by popup blockers when used with services such as Twitter," notes Parparita.

Google has also made some adjsutments to Reader Play, the visual Google Reader tool the company introduced back before SXSW.

"Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting," says Gmail and Google Buzz Product Manager Todd Jackson. "It’s built right into Gmail, so you don’t have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch — it just works. If you think about it, there’s always been a big social network underlying Gmail. Buzz brings this network to the surface by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with the most. We focused on building an easy-to-use sharing experience that richly integrates photos, videos and links, and makes it easy to share publicly or privately (so you don’t have to use different tools to share with different audiences). Plus, Buzz integrates tightly with your existing Gmail inbox, so you’re sure to see the stuff that matters most as it happens in real time."

"We’ve relied on other services’ openness in order to build Buzz (you can connect Flickr and Twitter from Buzz in Gmail), and Buzz itself is not designed to be a closed system," he says. "Our goal is to make Buzz a fully open and distributed platform for conversations. We’re building on a suite of open protocols to create a complete read/write developer API, and we invite developers to join us on Google Code to see what is available today and to learn more about how to participate."

We looked at the promo video for Google Buzz in another article, but Google has also now provided one focusing specifically on Buzz’s mobile aspects.

Google Buzz Tech Lead Edward Ho talks about the Gmail aspects of Buzz:

To make sure you don’t miss out on the best part of sharing, Buzz sends responses to your posts straight to your inbox. Unlike static email messages, buzz messages in your inbox are live conversations where comments appear in real time.

You can follow the specific people whose posts you want to see, but Buzz also recommends posts from people you’re not directly following, often ones where your friends are having a lively conversation in the comments. If you’re not interested in a particular recommendation, just click the "Not interested" link and your feedback will help improve the recommendations system. Buzz also weeds out uninteresting posts from the people you follow — collapsing inactive posts and short status messages like "brb." These early versions of ranking and recommendations are just a start; we’re working on improvements that will help you automatically sort through all the social data being produced to find the most relevant conversations that matter to you.

Software engineer Justin Zaren talks about photo sharing through Picasa on Google Buzz:

Google Buzz is built right into Gmail and is fully integrated with Picasa Web Albums. Any photos you upload to and share from Buzz are automatically stored in a new unlisted album in your Picasa Web Albums account, so you can view them from either site. It’s easy to upload multiple photos at once from Buzz – just click "Insert: Photo" from a new post, select "upload files," and click "Add photos to post" once they’re fully uploaded. Since photos are meant to be viewed fast and full-screen, clicking a photo in Buzz opens an embedded viewer designed to give you an optimal viewing experience.

Google Reader users can link their accounts with Google Buzz as well. "Just head over to Gmail and you’ll be able to link up your Google Reader account with just a few clicks," says Google’s Mihai Parparita  on the Google Reader Blog. "Then, anything you share in Reader will automatically be posted to Buzz. Comments are even shared between both products, so you can view and participate in the conversation wherever you’d prefer."

Remember that Google Buzz is rolling out over the next few days, so if you don’t have it yet, you will soon. Google Buzz will become available to businesses and schools using Google Apps, with added features within a few months, according to Google Enterprise Product Management Director Matthew Glotzbach.

Read this article if you want to see what I have to say about search implications and business uses of Google Buzz.

Related Articles:

> Will Google Buzz Change the Social Media Game?

> Whose Got The Buzz: Yahoo or Google?

> Is Gmail Google’s Real Social Network?

"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 <meta name="googlebot" content="noarchive"> 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

The list of changes is fairly long, and all together, they do a good job of bringing the mobile version of Google Reader in line with the Web edition.  For starters: Google added support for "liking," tagging, and sorting feeds according to items’ ages.

Then, as a post on the Official Google Reader Blog explained, "[W]e redesigned the bottom action bar to include a ‘More’ link, revealing additional options (with the most common actions selected by default). . . .  We’ve also updated the main header to be consistent with other Google mobile applications . . . .  And we’ve added an option drop-down in place of the old secondary tool bar, to give you a little more space for your feed items."

Finally, let’s not forget the one alteration made to the Web interface.  In the "Recommended Sources" section, users will now find people recommendations designed to introduce them to folks who share similar items.  This social component could help increase usage of Google Reader and result in a little more publicity for a lot of blogs.

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> Google Unveils Nexus One "Super Phone"

> Google Makes Google Reader More Personal

> Google Reader Gets Much-Needed Social Features