Google on Tuesday added a small but welcomed feature to its Reader service: favicons. These are the little square icons provided by sites that show up both in your address bar and open tabs (in most browsers at least). Google Reader users can now opt in to see them in their feed source list, where previously, feeds just showed up as little blue RSS signal logos. According to Google it was the top requested feature from Google Reader's product ideas mini-site.
In many ways favicons are a logical step in simplifying the feed reading process, since you can now find a particular feed in a long list of sites without even looking at the names. This is especially important since Reader displays feeds out of alphabetical order. However, some might find it to be sensory overload; luckily there's a quick toggle to turn them on and off right form the subscriptions list.
Google's choice of where to put the favicons is a tad strange though. For now, they exist only in the source subscriptions page, and not on the article pages where most of the reading is done. This is most apparent when cruising down a list of mixed items from various sites where users will still have to rely on the site names to identify where the content is coming from.
Also worth noting is that users of the Better GReader Firefox extension by Gina Trapani (formerly of blog Lifehacker) has long had an option to add site favicons to Google Reader's interface.
A bland list of blue feed icons in Google Reader gets the favicon treatment, an optional feature that can be turned on and off.
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Google has added new personalization features to Reader, its RSS feed aggregator, the company wrote in a blog post Thursday.
One new feature is dubbed Popular Items. Using algorithms, Reader will "find top-rising images, videos and pages from anywhere (not just your subscriptions)." From there, the app will lump all those pieces in the new Popular Items section. Based on a user's subscriptions and what someone is reading, Reader orders those stories by what it thinks a person likes best.
Reader's recommendations have been moved to the app's Explore section. Google also renamed it Recommended Sources. Like before, that feature will employ the user's Reader Trends and Web History to find a list of feeds he or she might like.
To make it easier for users to find the information they're most likely to care about, all Reader feeds now feature a sort option called Magic. According to Google, Magic "reorders items in the feed based on your personal usage, and overall activity in Reader, instead of default chronological order." Google said that the ranking is tailored to the user. The more the user clicks the "like" and "share" buttons on stories, the better the Magic sort will be.
Here is the Magic setting in action:
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Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)
FeedDemon 3 is ready for public use, after months spent in a beta version that saw a confusing migration from proprietary online syncing to Google Reader.
That rough patch sorted, FeedDemon remains one of the best desktop RSS and Atom feed catchers. This version contains a lengthy list of changes, including greatly enhanced Twitter connectivity, a tweaked interface that's a bit easier to use, and better tagging and sharing.
My Twitter stream in FeedDemon 3.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)FeedDemon has dumped its proprietary synchronization site, Newsgator.com, in favor of syncing with Google Reader. New users won't notice, but older users are likely to lose many unread feeds, since Google can't import feeds with more than 10 unread items. Once synced with Google Reader, unread feeds can again include more than 10 items.
There's also a new, persistent ad placed in the lower-left corner of the interface, and FeedDemon's performance could be a lot better--RAM usage was hefty, and 3GB of RAM didn't prevent occasional program hang-ups.
Twitter feed reading has been baked in because FeedDemon supports authenticated feeds. Hyperlinking and short-URL expansion are automatic, and if you use Twitter as a live news stream, FeedDemon's Twitter link sharing should appeal to you. To set that up, you need to subscribe in FeedDemon to your Twitter feed here.
Tagging, tag clouds, and item sharing get a massive overhaul in FeedDemon 3, with all three features added to the item view and a tag cloud added to the Subscriptions Home view. The interface will look similar to FeedDemon 2.8, but there are many little tweaks to improve its usability.
Flags have been renamed Stars for Google Reader consistency, for example, while the Home page features videos, pictures, and content from your feeds. One smart improvement over Google Reader is that you can view your starred feeds in the folders they came from, instead of in a single "starred items" folder.
We'd like to see performance addressed in future versions, but overall, FeedDemon remains a favorite option for desktop feed management. Let us know your thoughts on the new FeedDemon in the comments below.
If you're a frequent Google Reader user, you know full well that user comments on blog posts do not come along for the ride. On some blog feeds, it can tell you how many user comments there are, but on others, you typically have to visit the post to know.
A new solution called GReactions has attempted to fix this by slurping up comments from around the Web that are related to the post you're looking at. When it works, it's a seamless experience.
The Firefox extension is powered by Context Voice, which does the dirty work. This service tracks related conversation in places like Twitter, Digg, Reddit, WordPress blogs, and FriendFeed. It then clumps together those bits of conversation it picks up, and orders them chronologically.
To help sort through this mess, the tool lets you filter by source. You're also given a time line, which breaks down when each comment or mention is from.
GReactions sucks in comments from a variety of sources. Here it's grabbing them from Twitter, WordPress and FriendFeed.
(Credit: CNET)In my brief testing with it installed, it was most useful with older content that had been given a chance to be passed around the Web. Newer items, especially from niche blogs, had no related discussion.
For heavy Google Reader users, this is an extension that's definitely worth installing. It doesn't actually do any of its magic until you hit the "comments" button that's added to the Google Reader interface when installed. This means it's not going to slow down the initial load of your feed, or interfere with things like Gears.
Google continues to run its own internetwork comment system on top of blog posts, which can only be seen by other Google Reader users. So short of visiting each site to see what other users are talking about, this is the next best way to quickly eyeball user discussion.
RSS and Atom feed catcher NewsGator has published a pre-release version of their long-awaited and controversial FeedDemon 3.0. The update to one of the most popular desktop feed readers is abandoning the NewsGator proprietary synchronization site at newsgator.com in favor of syncing with Google Reader, and the transition--along with the forced obsolescence of several features that aren't available from Google.
To synchronize a FeedDemon folder with Google Reader, users must go to the folder properties window.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Overall, FeedDemon 3.0.0.27 offers the smoothest synchronization experience yet, but it's still rife with problems. Because of a Google Reader limitation, feeds will only sync the most recent 10 unread items. If you've got 11 or more unreads in a single feed, the process will mark the oldest one as read. Once a feed has been synced, then its unread count can climb above 10.
The synchronization of FeedDemon's "flags" to Google Reader's "stars" has been imperfect, as well. The sync is imperfect, with some flagged items not becoming starred when they appear in Google Reader. Also, the newly imported starred items in Google Reader lack the tags that associate them with your folder structure, forcing you to manually tag each one according to the folder name you want it to appear in.
Although those are big problems for the synchronization process, it's a definite improvement from the previous beta versions, which encouraged readers to convert their feeds while a bug-crippled conversion process was still in place.
There's more in this pre-release version than syncing improvements. A new Quick Tag menu for assigning post pre-existing tags on the fly has been added, as has the space bar as a keyboard command for advancing to the next post. As previously announced, this version removes automatic feed pre-fetching as a feature, and other stability and bug-fixes. This version feels like it starts up a bit faster, too.
If you're new to FeedDemon and like keeping browser resources down, the synchronization between Google Reader and FeedDemon should be flawless, or at least nearly so. Pre-existing FeedDemon users, however, face an uphill and tedious battle to everything that should be synced into Google Reader before Aug. 31: that's when newsgator.com stops syncing.
New features in Google's Reader product make it easier for users to share, manage, and discover content. Reader users can now pick certain sites they want to share to. It's very much like the drop-down sharing tool we have here at CNET, although Google is giving users the option to pick which ones they want to see from the drop down, as well as add their own. This may seem like an extra step, but for people who are really going to use the feature, it cuts down on both how fast the menu appears, and how much of your screen it takes up--two things Google obsesses about.
Google has also implemented a more granular system for clicking the "mark all as read" button, which would originally just restart your read count back to zero. The new system lets you pick to mark everything as read for items older than a day, week, or month. This means you can go without using the service while you're on vacation, and still begin catching up on items without disturbing the flow, and feel of using it on a daily basis.
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Reader now pulls up your friend's personal feeds, as long as they've filled out their Google profiles.
(Credit: CNET)Though what may be more important than both these features, is the way Google Reader now finds feeds from people you're friends with on the service, and lets you subscribe to them one at a time. Previously it just showed you what items they were sharing.
When I tried this new system out on my CNET colleague Rafe Needleman, one of his feeds was FriendFeed, which meant I only needed to subscribe to that one since all of his other feeds were wrapped up into it. I could also just grab his personal blog, Twitter account, or Delicious bookmarks. One thing to note though, is that Google is using its own profiles system to do this, which means you'll only see these extra feeds if that user has filled out their profiles there.
These changes have not been carried over to the mobile version of Reader, however mobile Reader users can now choose to open up directly to their feeds list, which has quick links to items from friends and items they've shared. It's likely some, like the new "mark as read" and sharing options will be added soon.
As FeedDemon closes in on finalizing the code for version 3, FeedDemon 3 RC 4 abandons its proprietary online synchronization at newsgator.com. The fourth release candidate syncs only with Google Reader, as FeedDemon's creator Nick Bradbury announced it would last week.
FeedDemon 3 RC 4 syncs with Google Reader faster and more cleanly than RC 3, but users with high unread counts will still lose most unread feeds.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Bradbury has stated in blog posts and forum messages that he hopes this will open FeedDemon to a wider audience, but the road to prepare FeedDemon for Google Reader has not been a smooth one. Many fans of the program have expressed frustration with the loss of features such as authenticated feeds and synced clippings.
In FeedDemon 3 RC 4, the synchronization scripts have been re-written to be faster and more accurate, and those changes show when compared to the third release candidate. The fourth RC only used 42 MB of RAM, as well. However, the conversion process won't be able to handle large numbers of unread posts, and limits the unread count to 10 per RSS feed. This is because Google Reader is limited to considering only 10 feeds unread from the past 30 days when subscribing.
Most of the other improvements in this release candidate are geared towards streamlining the conversion process to Google Reader. There's a new startup option to convert NewsGator subscriptions to Google Reader, and there's a link to create a Google Account from the Google Account window. Tags have gained prominence over clippings in the new version. Clippings will exist only if grandfathered in from a previous version.
The publisher of popular RSS readers FeedDemon and NetNewsWire is ditching its proprietary online RSS synchronization in favor of Google Reader. Newsgator's eponymous online service will cease on August 31..
Soon, Google Reader will be the only online synchronization option for Newsgator users.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)When the beta version of FeedDemon updated earlier this year with the ability to synchronize to either Newsgator or Google Reader, fans of the program rejoiced. Google Reader synchronization, the company says, was one of the most requested features for the Newsgator desktop clients. They have instructions for users who need to move their feeds to Google.
Google Reader may frustrate some, but it has far more users than Newsgator. Newsgator says that this was the main impetus for ditching the Newsgator synchronization for Google, but it's also using the opportunity to revamp its product line.
Along with Google Reader synchronization for FeedDemon, NetNewsWire, and the NetNewsWire iPhone app, Newsgator will discontinue Newsgator Online, Newsgator Go!, Newsgator Inbox, the Newsgator browser toolbar, and the desktop notifier. Several features in the desktop apps that depended on the proprietary syncing service will also cease to function at the end of August. If you use the blogroll, ratings or headlines features, Newsgator recommends removing them from any Web site they're used on by August 31. The shared clipping feature will transition into Google Reader's analogous feature.
Despite its popularity, one feature that Google Reader doesn't support that Newsgator does is authenticated feeds. For people who used Newsgator solely for that feature, their opprobrium on message boards and in comment threads is palpable. Interestingly, the last answer in the Newsgator transitioning FAQ points to another reason for the switch: a growing emphasis from the company on their enterprise-based business.
Newsgator recommends that all FeedDemon and NetNewsWire readers upgrade to the beta builds before August 31, since only those latest versions contain the Google Reader option. It gave no word on when the beta builds would finish development, but readers who want the current stable builds can get them for Windows and Mac.
Users of Google's Desktop software have a new first party widget to play with. This one lets you use most of Google Reader's features without having to fire up your browser. It puts Google Reader's source list in your sidebar where you can peruse feeds you're subscribed to and read individual stories in a small pop-up window that slides out across your screen.
The widget works both in Google Desktop's dock and "popped out" on its own. Between the two, I prefer it off the dock since you can see more of the feeds and stories at once without having to change the height and width of your sidebar; something that can affect the look and feel of other widgets.
One major drawback is that it can't yet properly display HTML-formatted feeds, meaning some of your feeds will be left unreadable with images and page formatting stripped out. However, just like in Google Reader proper, you can simply click on the headline to hop to it on its original site.
I also found performance on this widget to be a tad sluggish. It doesn't provide the instant feedback you get in the browser. For instance, clicking on my source list of feeds and seeing them appear took about two or three seconds. The same goes for any time you drill down to see any feed's list of stories.
Early flaws aside, there is a serious convenience factor here. You can keep an eye on your feeds no matter what you're doing, and read entire articles without the need to launch another app or be signed in with a specific Google account back in the browser.
The Google Reader Google Desktop widget lets you read your RSS feeds in widget form.
(Credit: CNET)Streamy, the personalized home page meets social feed reader, is now open to everyone. We originally profiled the company back in mid-2007. Since then it's been rebuilt and is noticeably faster. It's also streamlined the blog reading experience, which is the core of the service.
While I originally compared Streamy to Digg for the way it filtered up news stories based on who was reading and recommending them, these days it's a lot closer to FriendFeed. There's more of an emphasis on reading the content without leaving the site, and interacting with other users who have also read that same story. Where FriendFeed makes you jump to the site where the content is hosted, Streamy simply loads it within an overlay pop-up which also lets you comment, bookmark, and share it with friend.
New for the open beta launch is support for Facebook and FriendFeed. If you're a user of either of these services you can plug in your user credentials and it will pull in the latest stories from each, which to FriendFeed users may seem a bit odd. The added benefit of using Streamy over FriendFeed to corral all this information is that it throws in live chat and an RSS reader. Beginning next week you'll also be able to send anything you've bookmarked or read into your FriendFeed stream.
This was a really standout product back in 2007, and I worry that it may have lost some of its relevance since then. Where it has real potential is with its recommendation system for blog posts and the fact that it includes so much in one place. I don't know of any other product outside of a Web OS solution that manages to have live user and group chat, a news aggregator start page, full RSS reader, and a feed directory within the same enclosure. The closest thing is Netvibes, but that doesn't offer nearly as many options for re-sharing content without being noisy.
