Follow changes to any website

1/25/2010 02:01:00 PM

At Google we're always looking for ways to take advantage of work being done in other parts of the organization. So when a team approached us with a way to follow changes from websites without feeds, we jumped at the opportunity. Post by Liza Ma, Product Manager.

Feeds make it easy to follow updates to all kinds of webpages, from blogs to news sites to Craigslist queries, but unfortunately not all pages on the web have feeds. Today we're rolling out a change in Google Reader that lets you create a custom feed to track changes on pages that don't have their own feed.

These custom feeds are most useful if you want to be alerted whenever a specific page has been updated. 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.

Here are some more example feeds for sites without feeds that you could follow:

• Macy's - special offers [view in Reader]
• NYU Computer Science homepage [view in Reader]
• Zillow.com homepage [view in Reader]

We provide short snippets of page changes to help you quickly decide if the page is worth revisiting and we're working on improving the quality of these snippets. If you don't want Google to crawl or create feeds for a specific site, site owners can opt-out.

If you have a feed-less page you've been dying to follow, sign in to Google Reader and try it out for yourself. As always, if you have any feedback, please visit our official help forums or our Twitter account.

​A new year, new mobile features, and more!

1/05/2010 02:58:00 PM

Posted by Arif Siddiquee, Software Engineer ​

We know that many of you like to take Reader with you wherever you go, so today we are updating our mobile interface by adding a few new features along with a new streamlined look.

New mobile features include support for "liking", tagging, and sorting feeds by oldest/newest. These are all features that were previously only available on the web interface, and we’ve worked to get them into the mobile version as quickly as possible.

As far as streamlining goes, we’ve made a few improvements to give you more features with less clutter. First, we 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, specifically Gmail, Calendar, and Latitude. 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. We hope this also reduces those accidental “mark as read” accidents that happen on occasion.

On Reader's web interface, we've made it easier to find people who are sharing stuff similar to you. Take a peek at the new people recommendations (in the “Recomended sources” section on the web interface) to find folks with shared items we think you’ll enjoy. It's a nifty way to discover new feeds and people that you might not have discovered otherwise.

As always, we listen to your feedback and use it to improve Reader. If there are specific features you miss on the mobile version of Google Reader, head over to our Product Ideas page and leave us a note. We love all kinds of feedback through our official help forums and our Twitter account.

Take your Reader wherever Google Chrome goes

12/08/2009 09:10:00 AM

Posted by Mihai Parparita, Software Engineer

The Google Chrome team is launching beta support for extensions today, and we thought we'd take a shot at writing a Reader extension. The Google Reader Notifier displays the number of unread items in your Reader account in Google Chrome's toolbar. When clicked, the toolbar icon displays a popup preview of the latest items in your account. This way, you can keep an eye on your Reader account wherever on the web you are.

Let us know how you like the extension (and what other features you'd like to see in it) by adding a review on its page in the extension gallery.

Note that extensions are currently available only for the beta channel of Google Chrome for Windows and Linux, so you'll want to make sure you're running one of those browsers before you install the extension.

Reader users may want to try the RSS subscription extension too. It adds previewing and one-click subscribe support for any RSS or Atom feed that you happen to come across. And feel free to browse or search for other handy extensions.

And if you're a developer itching to write your own extension, you'll want to check out the extensive documentation and code samples.

Let your subscriptions' personality come through

11/24/2009 10:13:00 AM

Posted by Mihai Parparita, Software Engineer

We recently asked you for your ideas (and votes) on how to make Reader better. One of the more popular suggestions was adding favicon support for subscriptions, so today we're introducing just that (thanks to 20%-er Shreyas Desai).

We realize that not everyone wants their subscription list to turn into a multi-colored extravaganza, so we've made it into a setting that you can access from your subscriptions menu.

Be on the lookout for more ideas being implemented, and feel free to let us know how you like this feature on Twitter or in our help forum.

Reading gets personal with Popular items and Personalized ranking

10/22/2009 03:29:00 PM

Posted by Beverly Yang, Software Engineer

(Cross-posted with the Official Google Blog)

Today, we're launching two changes to Google Reader to help you discover more interesting content faster. Just as the launch of Personalized Search improved search results based on your search history, these changes use your Reader Trends to improve your reading experience.

• Explore section - We're always trying to help you discover new stuff in Reader, and today we're introducing "Popular items" and "Recommended sources", two ways to find interesting content from all over the Internet. 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. 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." 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.

  

• Personalized ranking - Only have a 10 minute coffee break and want to see the best items first? All feeds now have a new sort option called "magic" that re-orders items in the feed based on your personal usage, and overall activity in Reader, instead of default chronological order. Click "Sort by magic" under the "Feed settings" menu of your feed (or folder) to switch to personalized ranking. 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. Give it a try on a high-volume feed folder or All items and see for yourself!

  

The goal of personalization at Google remains the same as ever: to help you find the best content on the web. We hope these new features help you do just that — go Explore for yourself.

Finally, we'd love to hear your feedback — share your thoughts on our help group, Twitter or the Reader section of Get Satisfaction, a third party support community.

Calling All Ideas!

9/22/2009 10:21:00 AM

Posted by Nick Santaniello, Consumer Operations

The Google Reader team often looks to you, our users, for feedback on the changes we've implemented as well as for help determining our priorities for the future. In that spirit, we're excited to announce the launch of Product Ideas for Google Reader: a tool that allows you to submit your best ideas directly to the Google Reader team and to other Google Reader users.

Have you ever had an idea that would make Google Reader better, more efficient, or just more fun to use? Using Product Ideas, you can submit your idea as well as read suggestions from other users - and best of all, you can vote on the ideas submitted and browse the highest-ranked ideas. We'll get a chance to see and respond directly to the ideas that you, our users, are most excited about.

In addition to submitting product ideas, you can also post links to your own favorite custom bundles and Send To links as well as browse links submitted by others. Using Product Ideas, you'll easily be able to see (and subscribe to!) the highest rated bundles and Send To links as well as expose your own content to a whole new group of Reader users just like you.

Give it a try! Submit some suggestions and your favorite bundles and Send To links and, as always, let us know what you think.

Looking for great stuff to read?

8/25/2009 01:27:00 PM

Posted by Zach Yeskel, Product Marketing Manager

Where do Arianna Huffington and Thomas Friedman go to get different perspectives on the news? Which economics sites does Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman read? What sites and blogs do the editors of Lifehacker, Boing Boing and Kottke read?

These questions have always interested us, so we decided to approach leaders across a variety of fields and ask them what they read online. We got lots of great responses, which we've collected into our second edition of Power Readers. In this edition, we've expanded from Power Readers in Politics to include journalists, techies, fashion critics, foodies, and more. We hope this will be a good place for you to find more great things to read, whether you're new to Google Reader or already have an extensive reading list. Visit www.google.com/powerreaders to explore and subscribe to any of the participants' reading lists, or to any individual sites and blogs they recommend.

All these reading lists were built using Reader's new custom bundles, and we encourage you to create and share your own reading lists for your areas of expertise.

A big thanks to all of our contributors:

News: Thomas Friedman (New York Times), Arianna Huffington (The Huffington Post), Michelle Malkin (Hot Air), Paul Krugman (New York Times), Patrick Ruffini (The Next Right), Nicholas Kristof (New York Times), John Dickerson (Slate), Dexter Filkins (New York Times), Markos Moulitsas (Daily Kos), Charles Blow (New York Times)
Tech and web: Chris Anderson (Wired), Adam Pash (Lifehacker), Mark Frauenfelder (Boing Boing), Alex Papadimoulis (The Daily WTF), Danny Sullivan (Search Engine Land), Jason Kottke (Kottke.org), Annalee Newitz (io9), Meaghan O’Neill (Treehugger), Ben Popken (The Consumerist)
Food and health: Mark Bittman (New York Times), Béatrice Peltre (La Tartine Gourmande), Faith Durand (Apartment Therapy: The Kitchn), Tara Parker-Pope (New York Times)
Trends and fashion: Abby Gardner (Fashionista), Cathy Horyn (New York Times), Danielle de Lange (The Style Files), Carrie Leber (Bloomacious)

We'd love to hear your feedback – please head over to our help group, Twitter, or Get Satisfaction.

A flurry of features for feed readers

8/12/2009 05:00:00 PM

Posted by Brian Shih, Product Manager

Since our last big launch, we've been thinking about ways to help our users better share, discover, and consume content in Reader. Today, I'm happy to announce several new features that we hope will further improve the way you use Reader.

Send to...
We've made it easier to share posts you like to Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, and more, with our new "Send to" feature. (Incidentally, Blogger is celebrating its tenth birthday this month, and we're hoping our friends there will like this little birthday present.)
Just head over to the settings page, and enable the services you want to use. If your favorite service isn't listed (and you're feeling extra geeky), you can create your own "Send to" link with a URL template.

To share an item on one of your sites, simply click the "Send to" button and choose your service. If you're into keyboard shortcuts, "shift-t" will do the same.

Feeds from people you follow
When we added following, we tried to make it easier to find and follow people who share similar interests. Now we've gone even further, and made it possible for you to subscribe directly to the blogs, photos, or Twitter updates that anyone you're following has included on their Google profile.

To quickly subscribe to these sites, click the "From people you follow" tab on the "Browse for stuff" page.

More control for mark all as read
We know people can be overwhelmed by too many unread items, and sometimes only want to see recent posts. The "Mark all as read" button now has a menu that lets you choose to only mark items as read if they're older than your specified time frame. A tip of the hat to Nick Bradbury who pioneered this "panic button" feature.

Finally, a few small tweaks in this release:

• When you expand an item in comment view, you now get the full set of actions, enabling you to share, like, and star items without leaving comment view.
• We added a "Feeds" start-page option for the iPhone/Android/Pre mobile interface, so you can see a list of your subscriptions when you sign in.
• There is now an option to show notes when embedding your shared items on other pages as clips.

As always, if you have feedback, please head over to our help group, Twitter, or Get Satisfaction.

PubSubHubbub support for Reader shared items

8/05/2009 02:13:00 PM

Posted by Mihai Parparita, Software Engineer

Speed is very important at Google, and the Reader team is no exception. One way in which we take speed into account is to try to make consumption of feeds be as efficient as possible. We also want to make it as fast (and as easy) as possible to interact with your Reader data on the rest of the web.

We're therefore happy to announce that Reader has begun adoption of the PubSubHubbub protocol, beginning with the publishing of our shared items. All shared item pages have feeds, and now all of those feeds will ping a hub (and there's a <link rel="hub" .../> element in them). 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.

One place that takes advantage of this pinging is FriendFeed. This means if you have added your shared items to your FriendFeed account, you and your friends will see them there within a few seconds the "Share" link being pressed in Reader (special thanks to FriendFeeder Benjamin Golub for making sure the experience was as smooth as possible). You can see this in action in FriendFeed's search results and in the screencast below:

Adding PubSubHubbub support was a 20% project between Brad Fitzpatrick, Brett Slatkin, and myself, each of us working in our spare time over the past couple of weeks. Adding PubSubHubbub to your application is definitely a low-effort but high-payoff way of making the Web faster and more efficient. And if you have any questions or feedback about PubSubHubbub support, you can reach us on our help group, Twitter or Get Satisfaction.

A hearty welcome to NewsGator users

7/30/2009 12:30:00 PM

Posted by Brian Shih, Product Manager

A little while back, our friends over at NewsGator told us that lots of people who use their client RSS readers like FeedDemon and NetNewsWire had been asking for the ability to synchronize with Google Reader, since maintaining two separate subscription lists was a hassle. Today, we're happy to report that we've worked with NewsGator to make this possible, and new versions of their client readers released today will use Google Reader as the synchronization backend. If you use one of these applications, check out NewsGator's instructions and FAQ on transitioning your subscriptions.

Now that Google Reader can be used as the online companion to NewsGator's client applications, they've decided to discontinue consumer use of NewsGator Online, their free web-based RSS reader, at the end of August. If you've been using this service, you'll need to transition your subscriptions to Google Reader. To do this, all you need to is a Google account (you already have one if you use Gmail), and here's a video to help you get started. To those of you who have been waiting for this integration and to those of you who are using Reader for the first time, welcome!

As always, we'd love to hear your feedback in our help group, Twitter or Get Satisfaction.

Customize your mobile Reader experience

7/23/2009 01:55:00 PM

Posted by Mihai Parparita, Software Engineer

Reader's mobile interface for smartphones (iPhones, Android-based devices, and the Palm Pre) is a handy way to keep up with your subscriptions on the go. We realized that we've never officially talked about the settings page for the mobile interface, so here's a quick rundown of the ways in which you can customize your Reader experience to suit your tastes (on your phone, you can find this page by looking for the "Settings" link at the bottom of the screen).

• Start page: Choose which folder or view you'd like to see when you first log in.
• Link reformatting: Though smartphone browsers can generally render any webpage well, you may still want to reformat webpage (removing most styles and compressing images) if you're on a low-bandwidth connection.
• Links in new window: By default Reader will open links in new windows, but if you prefer you can open them in the same window, replacing Reader.
• Items per page:^New! Reader normally displays 15 items at a time, but if you have a fast connection or if wish to blast through more items at a time, you can choose to display even more.

We got the idea for the last setting from a blog post, so please keep the feedback coming, whether via blogs, our help group, Twitter or Get Satisfaction.

P.S. Speaking of settings, we've added a checkbox that those of you that are not big fans of liking may appreciate.

Following, liking and people searching

7/15/2009 05:29:00 PM

Posted by Jenna Bilotta, User Experience Designer

When we first started improving our sharing features, our goal was to make sharing as simple and flexible as the rest of Reader. Today, we're pleased to announce that we've made four improvements to give you more sharing control and help you easily find other people's publicly shared items within Reader.

Find and follow other people

Instead of sharing your items with others and hoping they reciprocate, you can now find people with public shared items and subscribe to their shared items with one click. Use our new people search feature (powered by Google profiles) to look for people who have public shared items. You can browse by name, location, or topic, and start following new people -- all from inside Reader.

Shhh, just between us friends...

If sharing publicly isn't your cup of tea, we now allow you to share items with a specific group or with multiple groups. If you choose to do this, only people you add to your sharing groups will be able to see and comment on your shared items. If you use Gmail, you will notice that these are the same groups from your Gmail contacts -- so, changes you make to these groups in Reader will change them in Gmail as well.

Take your 15 minutes of fame

If you want people who visit your Google profile to know what you're interested in on Reader, add a link to your shared items to your Google profile. Once you check the box marked "Add a link to my Google profile," anyone using the search feature within Reader will be able to find and follow your shared items.

To make it even easier for people to find you, you can also give your Reader shared items page a custom URL that uses your Google username, like www.google.com/reader/shared/pink.black. You need to enable this under "Profile URL" on your Google profile first.

If you liked it, then you shoulda put a "like" on it

Have you ever wanted to tell an author or publisher that you appreciate an article they wrote? Or maybe you want to let your friend know that you enjoyed the blog post he shared with you. With a quick click of the mouse (or a swipe of the "L" key -- for the keyboard shortcut pros), you can "like" any item in Reader. All "likes" are public, so anyone reading an item you've "liked" in Reader can see that you're a fan. Checking out shared items for people who have "liked" the same items as you is a great way to discover other people with interests similar to your own.

And one last comment about comments

One small note for this release: the ability to see and add comments to shared items is still restricted only to people you have in a sharing group (i.e. "Friends"). So, although your shared items might be public (and publicly discoverable), only people you have added to a sharing group will be able to comment on them.

These features are English-only for now, but as always, keep the feedback coming via our help group, Twitter or Get Satisfaction.

Google Reader on your Google Desktop

5/26/2009 06:20:00 PM

The Reader team is happy to announce that another 20% project has come to fruition: a Reader Google Desktop gadget! Post by 20% volunteer and Google Desktop expert, James Yum.

Wherever there are gadgets, RSS feed readers are never lacking, and Google Desktop gadgets are no exception. Until now, there hasn't been a good way to combine all your feeds into a single gadget. With the new Google Reader gadget, you can now track your feeds and Google Reader subscriptions directly from your desktop. The Google Reader gadget is designed to be familiar for existing Reader users, yet compact like our other Desktop gadgets.

To get started, download the gadget (you might need to install Google Desktop first) and sign-in to your Google account. If you select a subscription, your gadget will update automatically with new posts. Clicking an item opens a larger view where you can see the item preview and perform familiar actions such as star, share, and email. Due to a technical limitation of Google Desktop gadgets, full HTML feeds won't render fully, but clicking on an item title will take you to the original website in your browser.

The Google Reader gadget runs with the latest Linux and Windows releases of Google Desktop gadgets and is open sourced under the Apache 2.0 license. We hope this gadget is a fun and useful way to access your Google Reader subscriptions. Please give it a try and tell us what you think.

"Life is a great bundle of little things"

5/21/2009 07:06:00 PM

Posted by Brad Hawkes, Software Engineer

Have you ever had a friend you just knew would love your three favorite blogs about education policy? Do you know all the best sources for celebrity gossip? Or maybe a friend who knows where to get the best baseball commentary? If you've ever wanted to share your favorite feeds, now you can create custom bundles and share them with just a few clicks.

To get started, click "Browse for stuff" and create your own bundle.

Simply drag some of your subscriptions -- or even folders -- to your bundle, add a title and description, and click "Save". Just like Reader's other sharing features, bundles you create can be automatically shared with your Reader friends. You can also email your bundles or post them to your blog. You can even browse all of your friends' bundles -- who knows, maybe one of your buddies is actually an expert in gluten-free cooking.

To get this party started, here are some bundles the Reader team has come up with.

• All about the Google Reader team
• Airplanes
• Make stuff. Take pictures of it.
• Economics in World of Warcraft
• Make your house a home
• Favorite recipe sources
• Everything you've ever wanted to know about Jon Wiley
• Twilight overload

Try making your own bundle. And feel free to leave us some feedback via Twitter or the help group.

Post title quote attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Latest round of Reader improvements

5/19/2009 03:41:00 PM

Posted by Mihai Parparita, Software Engineer

The Google Reader team has just finished releasing a new version of Reader with a bunch of small changes and tweaks that we thought you'd like to know about.

If you've added enough friends in Reader that you're feeling overwhelmed, we're here to help. We've added a new set of tabs to the trends page called "Friends trends." This way you can see which of your friends share the most, and whose shared items you actually get around to reading.

In other social-related news, we're continuing to iterate on our comments feature. With this release, comments are now available to our non-English users. Additionally, item sources are now visible in the comment view and it's easier to mark items as read there.

Another area that we've focused on improving is the new user experience; we know that a fully armed and operational Reader account can help users go through a large amount of information very quickly, but getting to that point can be daunting. We've recently released a revamped new user page that tries to help with that. In addition to a welcome video and a tutorial, it also tries to help you get started by pointing out the kinds of feeds that you can subscribe to. Our most recent addition to this is the ability to import feeds from iGoogle. This way if you're trying out Reader and already have a heavily customized iGoogle account, your feeds are just a click away.

We've also made improvements to our mobile interface. You can now post notes if an interesting thought occurs to you while waiting in line. For those of you with Android phones, we've also fixed a particularly annoying bug that led to items not being marked as read correctly.

A lot of these changes were made in response to user feedback. Whether it's via Twitter, blogs or our discussion group, please keep it coming.

Meeting friends of friends

5/04/2009 01:59:00 PM

Posted by Nick Santaniello, Consumer Operations

About two months ago we enabled commenting on your friends' shared items. Today, we're happy to introduce some changes to how commenting works, including the ability to start sharing with any of the people who comment on your friends' shared items.

Have you ever read a comment on a friend's shared item and wondered who that person was? In the past, there hasn't been a way to interact with these people besides reading their comments on your friends' shared items. Not anymore!

By hovering over the name of an unfamiliar commenter you can see their profile picture and the links they've added to their Google Profile. Furthermore, you can click the "Start sharing" link to start sharing your shared items with that person!

This is a great way to add new people to your friends list. When that person next logs in, they'll see an option to view your shared items as well as the option to start sharing with you. If they reciprocate, you'll have a new friend in your Reader.

We've also made comments more visible and more flexible from within Reader. Now, you'll be able to see comments on shared items while viewing All items. You'll also be notified when new comments are made by the small speech bubble icon in your left sidebar, even when your Friends' shared items module is collapsed. While making comments, your options for formatting have been increased. Try using asterisks or underscores to spice up your comments with bold and italic text.

Note: You can stop sharing your items with someone at any time by visiting the Sharing settings link in your left sidebar. Also, if someone chooses to share with you, your shared items are not visible to that person unless you consent. Finally, the "start sharing" link in profile cards will also only appear to those users sharing with friends, and not those sharing only with chat buddies.

Google Reader is your new watercooler

3/11/2009 03:21:00 PM

Posted by Jenna Bilotta, User Experience Designer

One of the things that we love best about Reader is the ability to easily share interesting items with your friends. In fact, we like it so much that we've been adding bunches of new sharing features over the last year including choosing friends to share with, sharing with note and the sharing bookmarklet. But we quickly realized that one of the most important pieces of the sharing cycle was missing: the ability to have conversations with friends about all those shared items.

With our new conversation feature, you can have private discussions on shared items with your friends. 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!

What's new with this feature:

• You can comment on any items that you share or that have been shared by your friends.
  
• In order to keep track of conversations, you can check out the new "Comment view" which is optimized for tracking conversations and commenting. Comment view is a little different from your normal reading mode because it sorts the list of items by most recent comment. When there are new comments, the "Comment view" link will appear as bold. You can even read the full text of the items in this view by clicking the "Expand this item" (which will mark it as read).
  
• If you see a comment icon on top of a friend's profile picture in list or expanded view, it means there are comments on that item (this helps you decide what to read first.)
• When more than one of your friends share the same item, you'll see a separate conversation under each person who shared it, together in the same view.
• And don't forget, you can always read and add comments on your iPhone.

Some things to keep in mind:

• Comments can only be seen by friends of the person who originally shared the item.
• Comments are not yet available in the "All items" view.
• We have much more planned for this feature, but we would love to hear what you think, too.
• Currently, you cannot comment on items in a shared items subscription or on a shared tag; comments can only be made on items shared by friends.
• This release is English-only for now.

We are super excited to bring you this feature, and have plans to keep improving it in the near future. So, find some friends that use Reader, find some cool stuff to share, and join the conversation. Happy commenting!

SXSW 2009 Party: Reader, Blogger, and You

3/07/2009 01:31:00 PM

Posted by Brian Shih, Product Manager

It's about that time of year again! If you're heading down to Austin, Texas for South by Southwest, we hope you can join us and our friends from Blogger for a little party. Come, drink, and meet the fine folks behind Google Reader. We may even have a few things for early arrivals...

• Where: Six Lounge - 117 W 4th St @ Colorado (map)
• When: Sunday, March 15th from 10pm - 1am

Bring an SXSW Interactive Badge, or find one of us or the Blogger team at the conference for an invitation. We'll be donning some schwag, so keep an eye out.

Hope to see you there, and don't forget to follow googlereader on Twitter for any updates!

What we did on our winter break

1/29/2009 08:37:00 PM

Posted by Mihai Parparita, Software Engineer

After our big launch of the new look and feel, the Reader team took a breather and worked on tying up loose ends (don't worry, we also took some time off). We've just pushed a new release that includes the following set of fixes and tweaks:

• Improvements to our 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.

One other recent change is that we're now on Twitter. We've been fans of Twitter Search as a way of gathering feedback, but now we have a way of talking back. Feel free to send an @googlereader tweet to get our attention, and follow us for updates and quips.

Finally, we were honored to be nominated for a Bloggie. We encourage you to take a look at all the nominees in all the categories, it's a collection of some really great, subscribe-worthy, blogs

Google Reader for Beginners

1/08/2009 04:30:00 PM

Posted by Nick Santaniello, Consumer Operations

Have you ever had a friend or family member who you know would love using Google Reader? Have you ever had trouble explaining to that same friend or family member just how using Reader could make their lives easier (and more fun)? We sure have, so if you're anything like us then we have some useful tools in store for you.

The Google Reader Team is proud to introduce several new help resources designed specifically at introducing beginners to using Reader: Google Reader Help Videos and the Google Reader Getting Started Guide, both accessible directly from our Help Center.

Feel free to let us know what you think by commenting on the videos or by leaving feedback in our Help Forum. Although the videos are aimed at beginners, we're hoping to eventually cover even more advanced and lesser-known features in the same visual and step-by-step manner.

Now get watching, Readers! And don't forget to send the link along to your favorite beginner, newbie, or visual learner!