Google Reader Gets Notes - And Its Kinda Stupid

May 5, 2008

I have been a long time user of Google Reader. It is really convenient for monitoring all the various blogs that I want to keep track of. It has some drawbacks (like not being able to nest folders), but one that Google decided to solve was a problem I didn’t even think was a problem.

Being that it is an RSS reader, the stories that you could share out were limited to the RSS feeds that you subscribe to. You couldn’t share a single story without subscribing to the site’s feed and sharing just the story you are interested in. With things like FriendFeed out there which provide new portability to your Google shared items, Google decided it was time to allow easier sharing of a single link without requiring a corresponding RSS feed. Their fix puts Google Reader just a bit more into the category of, say, FriendFeed.

Google Reader now has “notes“. Basically, you can copy and paste any link you want into your Reader and share it. When you click on Notes, you get a simply textarea box where you can type/paste anything you want. You can free-form type or paste a URL. It looks like it is essentially setting up your own RSS feed within Google Reader and using that to share out to your friends.

It is a cool addition (I guess), but too little too late. FriendFeed still blows Reader away in terms of allowing easier sharing of single items from the web.

Reader is also adding the ability to choose an icon to represent your page in your shared items. Say what?

Google is trying to make Reader do too much. It isn’t really supposed to be a social networking tool. It is an RSS reader and in that mission it does very well. These little add-ons to make it more FriendFeed/Twitter like are borderline lame.

Source: Google