Google Reader Redesign

With the upcoming transition of social features in Google Reader to Google+, I thought this would be a good time to look back at the notable social-related events in Reader's history. For those of you who are new here, I was Reader's tech lead from 2006 to 2010.

Earlier this week Google redesigned the user interface of Google Reader. I hated it. Still, no one likes change, so ...

The way I see it, this is not an improved UI for Google Reader. I don’t think it was intended to be. Google Reader has not had any new features in years and for all intents and purposes had been abandoned by Google. With the across the board UI change for all of Google’s products, Google Reader needed to fall in line–even if Google really didn’t want to touch it. And so, we end up with a tool that looks like Gmail, but looks like no actual effort went in to determining how to improve the UI.

Update (11/4): Google has politely declined my offer. I spoke with the director of product management who oversees Reader and, while they do plan on making repairs to the UI, they don’t feel that I would be a good fit at this time. I’m fine with this, and am happy that they’re putting some resources into fixing some of the UX problems.

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.

Full disclosure: I am an ex-PM on Google Reader, and I worked on comments and the last round of sharing changes. I also left Google in July.

Google released the previously announced set of changes around G+ integration and UI updates today, and boy is it a disaster. Since the general changes were pre-announced last week, most of us were prepared for the letdown, but actually seeing how it works end to end has made several flaws abundantly clear. Let's start with the obvious.

Google clearly wants Reader users to move on over to Google Plus, where the company rightfully points out that we can create new circles and share our content that way. And hey, Google has every right to do whatever it wants with its free services. Some folks have used the product for five or six years and never paid a dime to do so.

Still, there's something about this approach that just feels reckless, if not somewhat arrogant on Google's part. For better or worse, users of Web services feel a certain sense of empowerment and even entitlement. They know that if the company running the service they love so much screws up or wrongs them in anyway, they have the power to put them out of business. That may be dramatically less true with giants like Google and Facebook, but just because they're immune from the crowd doesn't mean they should ignore it all together.

I realize Facebook is eating the internet at an incredible rate, but the answer is not more centralizing of our content consuming lives - at least not for me. Also, Google Reader is a workhorse for journalists and news producers. I know they called you a vampire to their industry, but they didn’t mean it. I take it back for them.

Google, if you’re listening, please consider the following:

1. Open source it. Much like you’ve done with the Jaiku and Wave code. If you aren’t going to keep reader around, don’t take it out to pasture just yet, open source it. But when I say open source it, I mean open source it more like you did Etherpad versus the others.

2. Sell it. If Yahoo can sell Delicious, you can sell Google Reader. Who’d buy it? I dunno, I’ll run a Kickstarter or something and give it a go. ;-)

3. Keep it around in Google Apps. I will pay you to keep my personal archive of ‘stuff’around, just give me an option to do so, and keep the API around.

The skies are threatening as Ryan Ellis briskly walks up I Street NW to join a small group of people who had spent the last half-hour making signs in front of Google's D.C. headquarters. "This is the most loserish protest ever!" he laughs, taking up a sign that read "GOOGLE: DON'T MARK ALL AS READ."

Ellis was there on Wednesday at midday because on Oct. 20, Google announced that it was disabling its RSS reader's social functions, which allowed users to share content, "friend" others, and follow other Google Reader users. The company's hoping people will use its Google+ social network to do those things instead.

The old way of doing things, however, has fans.

Google阅读器的书签工具失效了，要抗议

“Note in Reader" was a bookmarklet from Google Reader. It supports users to quote and share into Google Reader then spread to Google Buzz. The path design is quite a Sharism oriented. It's so useful for sharing, however the new version of Google Reader didn' consider the Sharism effect of this small but powerful tool.

Blogging about the tools we use to share stories of interest

Google Reader Improves Email Feature...

Funny that there were exactly that number of feeds in my reader when I opened it this morning

Google Reader - create a widget

You can select some other sites and services to send your shared items to. Selected sites will show up in the "Send to:" menu at the botton of each item.

Integrating with Google+ also helps us streamline Reader overall. So starting today we'll be turning off friending, following, shared items and comments in favor of similar Google+ functionality.

We hope you'll like the new Reader (and Google+) as much as we do, but we understand that some of you may not. Retiring Reader's sharing features wasn't a decision that we made lightly, but in the end, it helps us focus on fewer areas, and build an even better experience across all of Google.

Former Google Reader Product Manager Brian Shih has posted a scathing, but fairly accurate, review of the update to Google Reader. The update, which removed Reader’s own social sharing features in favor of Google+, was unpopular among Google Reader’s most active users because it destroyed their niche community built up over the years. But in Shih’s opinion, that’s only one of its problems.

Just as bad is the new visual style, he says, referring to the stark, black-and-white user interface Google has been rolling out to all its products in recent weeks. Says Shih: “it’s as if whoever made the update did so without ever actually using the product to, you know, read something,”

Update 2: (6 pm EST 10/29) now up to 9,241 signatures.

Update (9 pm EST 10/26) up to 7,383 signatures, with links from TechCrunch and Andrew Sullivan. As those two posts note, a bunch of Iranian activists are quite upset over the pending removal of social features from Google Reader, as it allows them to share news and commentary horizontally even after the source websites are blocked (and other social networks are blocked). I had no idea about all that when I set up this petition. My original thought was that Google should add features to Plus rather than taking them away from Reader, and not try and force us over, just because as a user I was annoyed. But now it seems there’s an even better reason they should retain the social functions within Google Reader itself. Hundreds if not thousands of the early signatures came from Iranians — you can see petition results here.

I can see Google’s desire to consolidate its social sharing strategy, but there’s a simple solution.

Rebuild Google Reader’s social sharing using the Google Plus API as a foundation. You make existing Google Reader users happy, you broaden their reach by extending the shares seamlessly into Google Plus, and you make a showcase for third-party developers on the kinds of products and services that can be built to enhance and extend Google Plus.

* I helped design Google Reader and have opinions about it.

http://www.google.com/reader - How to use Google Reader to read all your favorite news sites and blogs in one place and share news with friends.

What really bothers me, however, is Google’s casual decision to remove all of Google Reader’s “social” features, including friending, following and shared link blogs.

Look, I get that there’s probably only ten of you out there reading this who care much about changes to Google Reader. For mainstream news consumers, that Google is now streamlining and beautifying this neglected product is probably welcome news. But for those of us who use Google Reader regularly as a utility – as a place to track, follow, archive and search dozens of sources of information from favorite blogs to company feeds and more – any change to Reader has the equivalent impact as an overhaul of Gmail. In other words, proceed carefully or prepare for an earful.

And in this particular case, here comes the earful: I’m going to miss the “social” features Google Reader delivers.

by Gerard Bierens

googlereader_cheat_code

by David Crandall

googlereader.blogspot.com/2007/05/there-are-people-who-do...

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subscription trends

Actually for a blog post but if you like reading and you have a phone with an RSS reader (on the iPhone I highly recommend Reeder), you can consume a huge amount of reading (as opposed to seeing a lot of page furniture on the way to the actual stories) by using a RSS reader syncing with Google Reader.

Just came across this screenshot of one of the early versions of Google Reader. Amazing how much has changed.

Never noticed this before. I can translate my feeds right within Google Reader using Translate in the folder dropdown