Smooth Scrolling in Google Reader

Google Reader's settings page has a new section where you'll find "experiments you can choose to opt-in and try out". It's like a small Google Reader Labs that only has a single experiment you can enable: smooth scrolling. This feature makes the transition between items smoother and it's especially useful in the expanded view.

While this feature is more difficult to find, you've probably noticed the colorful ball that's displayed when Google Reader loads new posts. The animation is one of the few colorful elements from the new Google Reader interface.

{ Thanks, Venkat. }

Google Reader's New Share Button

When Google Reader released the new interface, I complained that sharing a post takes too many clicks: you first need to +1 the post, then click the share box and finally click "share". Now it's easier to share a post: just click the new "share" button and click "share" once again in the modal dialog.



Another advantage is that you can use the old keyboard shortcut for sharing items: Shift+S. Unfortunately, you can't use keyboard shortcuts in the modal dialog, so you still need to click "Share".

Decoupling the "+1" button from the "share" button is a good idea and Google should adjust the code of the +1 widget to make this possible. "Liking" and "sharing" are two different actions and should be treated separately, especially considering that +1's are always public, while sharing can be limited to a few people or circles.

{ Thanks, Zachary and Herin. }

A Better Way to Share Posts in Google Reader

Brian Shih, a former Google Reader Product Manager, says that the latest Reader update is "a disaster". One of the reasons could be that most of the initial members of the Reader team left Google and the new team doesn't understand the goal of the product.

"It's as if whoever made the update did so without ever actually using the product to, you know, read something. Reader is a product built to consume information, quickly. We designed it to be very good at that one thing. G+ is an experience built around browsing (similar to Facebook) and socializing. Taking the UI paradigm for G+ and mashing it onto Reader without any apparent regard for the underlying function is awful and it shows," says Brian.

One of Brian's complaints is that it's a lot more difficult to share a post in the new interface. Instead of clicking "Share" or using a keyboard shortcut, you now have to click "+1", then click "Share on Google+", select your audience and then click the "Share" button. There's also a privacy downside: +1's are public, even if you only want to share a post with one or two people.

Fortunately, there's a way to share a post without first clicking +1, but it's not obvious. Just use the "share" box from Google's navigation bar.


{ via François }

Read Your Shared Items in Google Reader

The latest Google Reader update removed all the social features, including the section that allowed you to read the items you've shared. Fortunately, the shared items page is still available at http://www.google.com/reader/shared/username (replace username with your Gmail username) and you can subscribe to this page in Google Reader, but only if the page was public. Click "subscribe" and paste the URL of the shared items page. If you don't have a Gmail account, load the shared items feed in Reader, right-click "Your shared items" and copy the URL.


You can now use Google Reader's search box to find a post you've shared. Click the "All items" drop-down next to the search box, scroll down to the end of the list (or just press "End") and you'll find the shared items feed.

To unsubscribe from this feed, you need to go to the settings page, click "Subscriptions", type "shared items" in the search box and click the "unsubscribe button".

Google Reader's New Interface

The new Google Reader interface is finally here and it also brings some functional changes: all the social features are removed and replaced by a Google +1 button. It's important to note that clicking the +1 button only adds the page to your Google Profile and you need to click the "share on Google+" box to share the page with your friends.

This means that the "share" and "like" buttons have been removed, you can no longer follow other Google Reader users and you can no longer read their shared items inside Google Reader. Folders and tags can no longer be public, the blogroll widget and the associated public page will stop being updated, while discussions are a thing of the past.



"When you find interesting items on Reader, you can choose to share them on Google+ publicly, or with a certain circles or friends. You can also add a comment in the sharebox to your shared items. Your comment will show up along with the item you've recommended in the streams of those you've shared with. Adding a note when sharing an item is a great way to let people know why you find a particular item interesting, relevant, or funny. To share an item with a note, just click the +1 button from underneath the item. You'll then be given the option to include any comments you might have in the Google+ share box. Your +1 will be public, but your notes in the share box will be only show up for circles and friends you've selected," explains Google.

What happened to all the posts you've shared or liked until today? You can export them from Reader's settings page, along with the items from people you follow, your discussions, your followers and the list of people you follow. Google offers two exporting options: JSON Activity Stream and a custom Google Reader JSON format, but they're not very useful without a software that parses them.

Unfortunately, all the items +1'd from Google Reader are treated like any other pages and there's no way to read the posts shared by your friends in Google Reader. In fact, there's no way to create a Google+ circle for the people you've followed in Google Reader. The new interface doesn't even offer keyboard shortcuts for sharing posts: Shift+s, Shift+d and "l" no longer work. The integration with Google+ is just an afterthought, instead of a proper replacement for Reader's sharing feature.

Update: Mihai Parparita, who worked on the Google Reader team, puts the changes into perspective and says that "Reader is on its fourth social model", after using Google Talk contacts, allowing you to manage your friends from the Reader interface and integrating with Google Buzz.

Google Reader Will Integrate With Google+

A lot of people expect a redesigned Google Reader and the good news is that they won't be disappointed: a new interface will be available next week. Google Reader is not dead, but the new interface couldn't be released faster because the sharing feature had to be integrated with Google+.

My favorite feature of Google Buzz was that it automatically imported all the shared items from Google Reader and allowed your followers to discuss them. Now that Google Buzz will be discontinued, this feature will be available in Google+. Unfortunately, Google Reader will no longer have a standalone sharing feature, a separate list of followers and people you follow, a feed and a page for shared items. This is great if you are a Google+ user, since it simplifies sharing and makes Google Reader more consistent. If you don't want to use Google+, you'll still be able to share posts by email or using the "send to" feature, but these workarounds aren't very useful for sharing a large number of posts.


The takeaway is that Google+ is not a distinct social service you can easily ignore, it's a service that will be used for sharing photo albums, documents, videos, for posting blog comments and it will be very difficult to use Google without joining Google+ since, at some point, Google+ will be... Google itself.

"Many of Reader's social features will soon be available via Google+, so in a week's time we'll be retiring things like friending, following and shared link blogs inside of Reader. We think the end result is better than what's available today, and you can sign up for Google+ right now to start prepping Reader-specific circles. We recognize, however, that some of you may feel like the product is no longer for you," mentions Google's Alan Green. That's the reason why you'll be able to export your shared items, your starred and liked items, your list of friends from Reader's settings page.

Google Reader's sharing feature has always been difficult to use and the integration with Google+ will finally give Reader the opportunity to shine and show why it's still a useful service. I'm sure that a lot of users will complain that they can't use the old sharing feature, just like many YouTube users complained when Google migrated YouTube to Google Accounts. There's a lot of value in having separate services with their own accounts, sharing features and friends lists, but switching to unified accounts, unified profiles, consistent sharing features makes Google's services more useful because they work together, they combine their strengths and become easier to use.

Google Reader, Replaced by Google Sites in the Navigation Bar

Google Reader users probably noticed that the feed reader has been replaced by Google Sites in the main navigation bar. To visit Google Reader, they need to click "More" and then click "Reader" in the list of Google services.


Unlike the last time when Reader was replaced by Google Sites, this time is not an accident. A Google employee explained that this is a permanent change.

While the link to Reader has moved, you can continue to access Google Reader under the "More" dropdown. Or, you can also set a specific bookmark to reader.google.com for one-click access. Depending your browser, try dragging http://reader.google.com right from this post onto the bookmark bar on your browser (usually below the URL bar).

Google has usually made changes in the navigation based on the popularity of the services and it's likely that Reader's popularity is declining, while Google Sites gains more users. According to Google Trends, the queries [google reader] and [google sites] have almost the same search volume in the US.


Like Picasa Web Albums, Google Reader doesn't have a new interface based on Google+. The latest features added to Google Reader were comment moderation and integration with Google Buzz, a service that will soon disappear.

{ Thanks, Cougar. }