E-lusion

For the world's leading RSS reader, integrating social functions hasn't always been drop-dead simple and easy. With each new addition, be it the recent "Send To" features, the addition of "likes", or the ability to selectively enable friends to make comments on your shared items, the service needs to scale in a way that has brought many other Web-based feed readers to its knees - compounded by Google Reader's accelerating user base. And while the company works to make sharing and engaging simpler, I am already seeing a rapid rise in conversations within Google Reader, both on my own posts, and on those from others I share. Recently, the total number of comments on some posts has even eclipsed those natively here on my site, or on FriendFeed, Facebook or anywhere else.

Almost 600 people can comment on my Reader shares.
Since starting my shared items link blog in Google Reader a few years ago, I've passed along almost 10,000 links (a point I may pass by the end of the month). I recognize my pace of sharing between 20 and 30 items a day is on the high end, but these selections represent the top 4 to 5% of all articles I see online, with the intent of passing on only the best to those who consume the shares downstream. I've even had some people say they have unsubscribed from reading feeds directly, trusting me to be a human filter. That's a little daunting, but a task I can take.

You might remember that back in March, Google turned on comments on these shared items. Though activity was initially slow, I have seen increased velocity, especially after reorganizing my contacts.

As Google Reader does not have public comments on shared items that are visible to everyone, they have taken the middle road - showing these comments to those who are also subscribed to the shares, and only enabling those people to comment who have been added to a specific group by the sharer. After several hundred people had signed up to follow my shares, and I was seeing only a little activity, I realized the problem was mine, so I took some time to organize all my contacts, and enable everyone who follows with the ability to comment, just like in FriendFeed or Facebook. This part is critical, so if you do have a lot of people following your shares, go to your sharing settings in reader, and make sure that they are in a folder that has access.

Each of My Friends Is In a Group that Has Access to Commenting

This Article On Lazyfeed saw Dozens of Comments In Google Reader
With that change, people who may previously have been watching the shares go by, but couldn't comment, now can - and the results have been very interesting. Some of the more popular threads on shares from me have seen on the order of dozens of comments, even when the original post may only have shown a handful on the original blog.

Another Popular Topic of Discussion Within the Reader Shares
While a few years ago, this could have been considered the end of the world by some bloggers, the social Web has grown to understand that distributed conversations are taking place. By Google Reader enabling conversations to happen through their application, readers can act on the news immediately, without having to open a new window and participate there. It's also had me rethinking whether I should be self-sharing, in effect sharing my own posts when they get into Reader. I've personally tried to share only a subset of what I consider the best, but now that I have seen people engage right from within the app, it makes me think I should just share them all and enable the comments to take place where my readers are comfortable.

Now, every time I log into Google Reader, not only do I see new feed items to read, but I see new follower requests looking to see the shared link blog - and also, in bold, a "Comment View" which takes me to see all the comments, not just on items that I have shared, but on items shared by people whose shares that I follow. Google Reader, in a matter of months, has become a very serious part of the conversation. In light of the uncertainty around FriendFeed and how that company will integrate with Facebook, I am betting that some people are looking back at their RSS reader for information consumption and now, social discussion.

So go ahead, comment on my items in Google Reader. I don't need all the comments here. To find my shared items, head to: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/louisgray, and let's get connected.

Labels: Comments, Google, Google reader, RSS

You can find Louis Gray here: http://www.louisgray.com/ and also on FriendFeed here: http://friendfeed.com/louisgray

Google Reader has been getting a lot of attention lately. This attention is due to the newer social features that the team has been adding. Given that my attempt at humor failed as usual and did not really explain what I was thinking. So, I decided I should write a more serious post about what Google Reader needs to improve. My goal is not to ask Google Reader to become FriendFeed, but more to use the features they have in better ways.

Group and Contact Management

I like the idea that new Reader followers need to be in a group to comment on your shares. That gives the user a level of control on what can happen. However, the management of groups and contacts leaves a lot to be desired. First, Google Contacts needs some cleanup to really handle groups better. If I add a follower in Google Reader, that contact should have some flag denoting the source of the addition, even if it is from GMail itself. This allows people to understand where a contact came from without having to scroll through their entire list of contacts.

The contact and group settings in Google Reader need to be more obvious. The settings are somewhat buried, and generally hard to find. Why not just add a tab to the Google Reader settings? The contact management tab in the Reader settings could be a miniature version of Google Contacts that only lists Google Reader followers, with the required “invite your friends to Google Reader” link.

Lastly, if we have to put people into groups, those groups should be included in the user interface. So, in the “People you follow” section, why not have the groups look like folders instead of just dumping a user list. This is more of a selfish request as I am an organizer of data. I would like to put people into related groups, not just a “reader shares” group.

Comments

The comment feature is quickly gaining acceptance in my group of followers. However, they are not really part of the feed items. The comment view is a good idea when you just want to go back to the comments for some feed items, but there should be more integration with my general feed reading.

A small addition to Reader could be comment notifications. I would like to get an email when someone comments on one of my shares or a comment stream that I am involved in. This is one feature from FriendFeed I would love to get.

Notes

Notes are another feature that I see being used more often. The big problem with notes is that they are not integrated into everything that I do. I am also not sure what the general purpose of the note feature is. I understand the “share with note” feature, as it is a nice way to initiate comments on a share. However, the standalone notes are like an outsider. They appear similar to a share just without an RSS item. I am thinking that notes either need to be a first class user interface item that always appears (making Reader more of a microblogging application), or removed in favor of only “sharing with notes”. I do not think there can be an “in between” for that type of feature.

API

I have been hoping for a proper API for Google Reader, and now that there are likes, comments and followers it is entirely needed. Take the example of Twitter and build a solid API that allows people to search for feeds, items, people and anything else that is stored. Given that you are Google, people would likely flock to the API and build some really cool applications. I also have my own selfish reasons for a good API

Overall, I think this is a fairly reasonable list of requests, without trying to make Google Reader turn into FriendFeed or Twitter. Are there simple improvements that you would like to see?

If the Google Reader team reads this, feel free to contact me via email (info AT regulargeek DOT com). I would gladly have a chat if there is any confusion on what I have suggested. Otherwise, feel free to comment.

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Today marks day two of my Google Reader exploration. In this entry, I would like to address the question about Google Reader's ability to share more than just text. This is a hot topic on Friendfeed, as well as Reader, so let's dive right in.

Thanks to Vince DeGeorge, Hanna Wiszniewska, Matteo Farber, and the many other inquisitive Google Reader users, we have found that you CAN share images, maps, videos, and even audio clips into your Google Reader stream. While it may not be as intuitive as Friendfeed, it does work.

Get the Note in Reader Bookmarklet
The easiest way to begin is by using Google Reader's 'Note in Reader' bookmarklet. To get, do the following steps:

1. Visit Google Reader
2. Click on Your stuff (located on the left hand side)
3. Once the page loads, you should see the Note in Reader
4. Drag the Note in Reader button onto your browser toolbar

Sharing
Now that you have the bookmarklet in your browser's toolbar, it is time to start finding interesting content. In many cases, you will want to share blogs and news stories. At most, this means sharing the URL, Title, and brief summary. To accomplish this task, just highlight a paragraph on the page you want to share and click the Note in Reader button. At this point, you can edit the summary and add a comment.

Sharing Things Other Than Text
This is really where many Friendfeed users are struggling. They want to continue sharing images, video, and audio clips like they can do now. To accomplish this task, we have a couple of options. We can:

1. Embed the code
2. Highlight the object
   
3. Use HTML

Embed the Code
On many of the popular sites (e.g., YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, and etc.), users can copy an embed code and paste it in the Note in Reader form. When you hit the Post item button, it will automatically share the item in Reader.

Highlight
Similar to sharing text, you can highlight text and images and then hit Note in Reader and it will automatically populate the window.

HTML
For those with a little HTML skill, you can also write a link to multimedia directly in the Note in Reader form.

I, and a number of others, have tested each of these options with success, whereby making Google Reader even more powerful than many initially thought. As you can tell, the wonderful people exploring Reader are pressing the limits each day. If you find any other great tips, please feel free to share them.

You can read Damond's blog here: http://www.damondnollan.com/ and he can be found on FriendFeed here: http://www.friendfeed.com/damondnollan and Google Reader here: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/damondnollan

Inspired by the question by Damond Nollan on Google Reader:

“What do I have to change in my settings to encourage commenting within Google Reader? Second, how would you know people are commenting once you’ve read the post?”

I let myself compile this little how to which perhaps could be of a help also for others.

How to encourage commenting in Google Reader:

1. Go to Sharing settings

2. Assign people you follow and people following you to groups.

3. Edit settings of the group you want to share comments with.

4. In case you want to create special group – go to Google Contacts: http://www.google.com/contacts

how do you know that people are commenting on your shared post?

To check if shared by you item has the comments – go to ‘Comment view’ (just below ‘People you follow’).

I hope it will help new users of Google Reader. Enjoy!

PS: As for today, you will have to go through the procedure of “encouraging comments” every time you log into Google Reader and even each time you refresh it (probably due to some kind of small though annoying bug in the new, social “incarnation” of all Geeks favorite tool )

PS2: Interesting post on the subject by Damond Nollan here: http://www.damondnollan.com/2009/08/could-google-reader-become-next.html#

You can read Hanna's blog here: http://polnor.net/ and she can be found on FriendFeed here: http://friendfeed.com/tamihania

"This picture tries to show what features are the same on Google Reader and Friendfeed. Maybe this can help all FriendFeed users to switch to the New Friendfeed: Google Reader? Please spread this as much as you can!"