Google Reader adds better email features

I still love Google Reader, but they haven’t done much to address the issues we mentioned in March. Though one of the key developers said he and the Ph.D’s were meeting to address issues like duplicate feeds, customization, link blog directories, and simplified access to trends, none of those are here yet.

Glad they dig your link blog though. It’s pretty dang solid.

It’s nicely done but… unfortunately, it isn’t much use if you don’t use Gmail. It doesn’t honor the custom reply-to address from Gmail, so any responses go back to an account I don’t use (766 spam messages this week).

Worked good for me (I use gmail) and this will save me a few steps as I mail articles to my friends in the 20th century.

I think that “hide this items” features must be very useful, it would allow me not to see some items again. But could not found this features on any feed readers.

It’s nice, but I don’t see that much use of it – feeds are a passive medium, so everyone can read whatever he wants, or just unsubscribe whenever he wants. Emails are more active, so I force something I think is good onto someone else.
It’s still a nice feature and just makes it easier to email an article you really want to show someone, but instead of using the original article directly you will now show someone the google reader entry – not a bad move for google I guess.

@TanNg: a “hide this item” feature would really be nice, never thought about that. Atm I use staring and sharing to find good articles again (and a customized google search for my feeds).

Cheers
Frank

Good,for me that i use Gmail is a great features.

Unfortunately, they broke some of its usability.

Before the changes, when I clicked on a post or when I used J, it used to automatically mark the post as read.

Now, I have to click “read” or use the M key. So, instead of J, J, J,… it’s J, M, J, M, J, M,… It’s twice the number of keystokes to do the same thing I used to do.

I liked this feature, because sometime, I skip some posts I want to read later. Now, the less annoying way, it to do J,J,J… then “mark all as read”. But I lose some features.

Hi Jerome,

Can you make sure that the checkbox “In expanded view, mark items as when you scroll past them.” in the “Preferences” tab of settings checked?

Mihai Parparita
Google Reader Engineer

I’ve never really subscribed (forgive the pun) to the idea that feed readers do much for me. I’ve tried quite a few of them and never really found the idea a keeper.

In my mind, there is something to be said for actually visiting a site and reading a bit of news.
I read about 12-15 blogs a day and I visit each site in turn, some of them many times a day.

Since I’m not up on the exact technology, do feeds take away from “hits” on a given website, or are they somehow counted?

Google Reader needs keyword alerts (which is the primary way I’d prefer to read blogs to get more points of view on subjects I care about.

Mihai,

thanks for your comment, but it is not what I am talking about. I don’t want the items marked as I scoll past them. I never had that feature enabled. Well, I had it for like a minute and hated it.

I’ve been to Google Reader’s group and it seems it is a “bug” you corrected. I, as many people, found it was a very usable feature.

This way, you can click on posts and mark them read (or use “j”). But, you can also scroll back to past posts you found interesting without marking the unread items read.

The results simply doubles the number of clicks or keystrokes to do the same thing as before.

If you think it was a bug (I disagree), you could ad an option “mark item read on focus”.

Its good if and only if you use gmail.
Sure they are learning some things from MS?