In some unexpected news, I woke up this morning and found that Google Reader was not working. The site itself is still working- I was able to login and to view the titles of my feed, but the only unread items were 8 posts from Memeorandum. After browsing through those I tried to refresh the page and no new stories came up. I used Reader yesterday afternoon but did not check it after 9pm last night... It looks like this probably is relatively widespread. TechCrunch posted about it as did a few other people and there is an unofficial thread starting over at Google Groups. Normally I would be pretty unhappy if a Google service went down, especially Gmail, but it's refreshing not to feel obligated to read all my RSS items this morning. With something like 125 feeds there can be a lot of posts on Monday morning and I have been getting pretty burned out lately, so even after the weekend a few extra hours without my feeds will fine with me. You still have to wonder what is going on over at Google though.

Google Gears is a lot more than an offline version of Reader. Yeah, that's totally awesome but it has much larger implications than that. I won't get into it all here, because a lot of people have already done an excellent job of explaining it. For the best post out there I would check out ZDnet's blog and the IT Matters podcast. I can't believe they did not roll out Gmail offline at the same time as Reader! It's also interesting that Gmail, before Gears came out, worked offline well. You could not save or send or anything like that, but I never lost something I was typing and the transition from online to offline and back was seamless. The only way you would know (aside from not being able to do a few things) is that chat would become unavailable and it would not autosave.

While Google's Reader is arguably the best RSS reader currently available, there are still some issues that have to be addressed. One of these that is not particularly pressing, but that I would have thought Google could have fixed it immediately concerns duplicate posts and feeds. Though it seems like it would be relatively simple to do, Reader does not delete duplicate feeds if they are added or warn of a duplicate existing. The same has always gone for posts as well- if you read something somewhere and it is posted someplace else, you will inevitably end up reading it again (if you subscribe to both feeds). This second point mainly comes up with sites that repost other sites' content. I mainly run into this with SeekingAlpha who works with number of bloggers in this capacity but it also happens with people who have a shared feed (which is easy to do through Google). Today I noticed one such duplicate. Robert Scoble's shared feed had linked to a post from Marshall K's blog, to which I am also a subscriber. I noticed this and got to playing around with it- when it was marked as read in the Scoble shared feed it was also considered read in the Marshall K feed, but the converse did not seem to be true. This is to say they when I read it through Marshall K's feed the Scoble post count did not immediately decrease. Upon further investigation it did in fact been marked, but I had to hit the refresh button in order for Reader to update itself, something which is generally not necessary (but definitely happens from time to time). So I did not have to read "10 Things You Can Do With Mixed Media RSS" twice thanks to Google Reader removing the duplicate. I have to keep experimenting in order to find out to what extent Reader is removing duplicate posts once they are marked as read. The situation I just described does not seem like the real deal because it is using Google Reader's shared feed system so the procedure probably isn't as complex for them as it would otherwise be. It does recognize the two posts as being the redundant, though because of the way Google's shared posting system works it seems like it is not recognizing a duplicate so much as it is seeing the two as being the same post (with the shared post acting as some kind of shortcut). If the system could actually recognize duplicate content from different feeds- not that this should happen very often- that would be impressive.

A brief glimpse into my reading habits. Google Reader reports:

From your 118 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 20,008 items, starred 17 items, and shared 0 items.

Eek, that is a lot of reading. Well, much of that was skimming, but I definitely spent too much time keeping up with the news. Whose fault is that? (The top 5)

• Seeking Alpha- 64.2 posts a day
• Scoble's Shared- 43.6 posts a day
• Gizmodo- 43.2 posts a day
• Blogging Stocks- 42.8 posts a day
• Kotaku- 39.9 posts a day

Whose posts have I starred the most? (The top 3)

• Consumerist- 3
• Lifehacker- 2
• Simple Dollar- 2

BTW, all the people that stopped by here and subscribed in the past few days- thanks for checking out the site. Feel free to comment or email me with requests as to the subject matter (I know the blog tends to be all over the place) or with any inquiries about the posts).

Google is making small upgrades to its services all the time and most go unnoticed by users. These tweaks, unlike the major revisions, are kept under the radar and are sometimes not even covered on their blog. From time to time and slowly improve tools like Gmail and Reader in a way that is user-friendly and not disruptive.

The latest change, one I noticed this morning is to Google's hottest service, Reader. These were a few simple changes to the site's interface: the Refresh and Mark All as Read buttons above the feed area were change from text to a button, as was the feed Refresh button. Also, and this is something I know a lot of people have wanted, previous and next buttons were added to act as the k and j keyboard shortcuts for people who prefer to use the mouse. So nothing huge, but definitely a few solid tweaks. If Google keeps up the good work and keeps following the suggestions of the users Reader will definitely be one of their most popular products. It is already the best feed reader available, despite its flaws so the facts that it has been improving and could be brought out of Google Labs soon are exciting prospects.

This is probably not the first time you have heard this, and it definitely won't be the last- Google Reader is the best RSS reader available right now. There are a few good alternatives but currently Reader is far ahead of the pack. This is not to say that Reader is perfect though, there is still room for improvement. After all, it is still part of Google Labs. Here are some ways Reader could be improved:

1. Search I know this has been pointed out many, many times, but it would be really super to be able to search through old posts and find an item I forgot to star or bookmark. I would have thought this would be the first thing Google integrated into Reader, it's the backbone of Gmail, but I guess we will all have to stick to Blogsearch until something changes.
2. Update Frequency Before I moved to Reader I was using RSS Bandit and I become spoiled by a few of the features. One of my favorites was the ability to set how often each feed was updated. This is very useful to do on an individual basis as some feeds you might want to reader as soon as possible and others you might want to check out every two hours. This is especially useful for those of us who are easily distracted and have to get some work done.
3. 100+ Come on, tell me how many posts I have left to read. I know Google can count past 100 and I can't think of a reason why they would cap the number at 100.
4. Password Protected Feeds Unlike certain desktop RSS applications Reader can't work with password protected feeds. This does not come up very often but when it does it is a major annoyance and prevents the sort of centralization Google is shooting for.
5. Different Feed, Different View If you have a lot of feeds, chances are that some you read closely and some you just skim. Reader is able to set individual feeds so that they can be sorted by oldest or newest, but it is unable to individually set the view mode. It would be great to be able to scan some feeds in list view and read others more deeply in expanded view. Even if this could be done by folder it would be helpful.
6. Custom Keyboard Shortcuts Reader's use of keyboard shortcuts is one of its greatest advantages and it allows users to get through news items quickly and efficiently. As good usable as the shortcuts are it would be great to be able to set the shortcuts that work best for us.
7. Separate Logout Right now Google services are linked so that if I logout of Gmail am logged out of Reader as well. This is good from a security standpoint, but can be a hassle if you want to close your email but you don't mind leaving your RSS feeds open. This would be a great option to have and it is something Zoho has done with their services.
8. Can't Drag Feeds Feeds can be sorted into different folders but to set/change this you have to go into the Settings, find the feed and make the adjustment. Being able to drag them from one folder to another would be a lot quicker.
9. Remove Duplicates If I accidently add a feed a second time, just there should some sort of warning. If I want to place in in a different folder than the original, fine, but chances are I don't need it so warn me and make sure I want it.

That's it, at least for me. I am sure there are a number of things I missed, but these nine things would bring Reader up to a whole new level. I strongly believe that it is the best feed reader out there right now (online or on the desktop) but it has gotten very popular and Google should be improving it as often as possible to keep as those people happy.

It's official- I have completely moved my RSS reading over to Google Reader. For a months now I have resisted moving away from my desktop reader, RSS Bandit, and while I still believe it to be the best desktop reader (so long as you are looking for something light weight with no web counterpart), despite it's problems. The problems, such as problems with searching, the inability to properly negotiate with deleted posts, and issues loading advanced applications (like movies), are ones that most readers have so I never really blamed it. RSS Bandit is easy to sure, super fast, and is able to let me plow through a "river of news". For some time I have used Google Reader as my mobile/travel reader, but resisted the urge to completely switch over. I don't have a single good reason why I did not switch- I am a dedicated Gmail and Gcal user and like Reader's design a lot- perhaps I just did not want to let Google infiltrate every aspect of my online life. Anyway, I rigged a OMPL file from RSS Bandit and translated it to Google (after some work in Textpad because the two don't get along) and then got to customizing Reader to my liking. This basically consisted of turning on all the privacy settings (turning off all the sharing settings), organizing my feeds into four basic categories, and then refamiliarizing myself with the keyboard shortcuts. The whole process took about 30 minutes, and I have to say I am very happy with the move. Google Reader has its problems and there are a few things I miss about using a desktop reader, such as always having to have another browser tab/window open for Reader, but overall my reading experience is much better. Not only am I now a lot more efficient, but I can do a important things that my old reader could not, like star posts (to save for later), share items, quickly change my tags, and access my news from anywhere. Also the ability to use different views is a big help, though I am a firm believer in expanded view. As for Google Reader's shortcomings, there are more than a few, but I will save those for another post.