google reader

Facebook’s news feed makes it look like a content aggregator. Now Google Reader is starting to look more a like a social network. The world’s leading RSS reader now copies features from the world’s leading social network: people search and “like” buttons. The people search feature is itself powered by something else that’s very Facebookish: Google Profiles.

This isn’t Google Reader’s first step into social networking. Google Reader users have long been able to share content with each other. Join a blog on Google Friend Connect, and it shows up in Google Reader. Once again, we see the different approaches these companies take to the Web: Facebook starts with people and moves to content, while Google starts with content and moves to people.

We all know which approach advertisers prefer right now. Google makes billions matching ads to content, while Facebook is still trying to figure out how to match ads to people (Beacon fiasco, anyone?). Even in that area, Google is starting to match ads to people through behavioral targeting.

Thing is, advertisers go where people go. We must ask which approach people prefer right now. Do people prefer discovering connections through content, or content through connections? Google Reader’s social experimentation should help answer that question.

Originally posted on July 16, 2009 @ 6:41 am

Thanks to a new bookmarklet, you can now share any Web page in Google Reader, instantly making it competitive with Digg and its army of crowd wisdom clones.

Not just limited to RSS feeds and news items, you can now share virtually all items, a la your favorite social news site.

As an added bonus, you can attach a virtual Post-It note to the item, letting your friends and contacts know what you like about the content.

A special icon can be assigned to your shared items, allowing you to differentiate them from the pack.

These upgrades might pull some folks away from del.icio.us.

Here’s the word from the horse’s mouth:

Share anything with a bookmarklet – Just drag this link from the Notes page up to your browser’s bookmark bar and click, click, click your way to easy, no-subscription sharing in Reader. You can share any content from any web page, even if the site doesn’t have a feed. For even more control over what gets shared, select some text from the page before clicking the “Note in Reader” bookmarklet and your selection will appear as the item’s body. There’s also a space for you to add an editorial note when you need to let your friends know why you are sharing something. You can always uncheck “Add to shared items” if you want to add something to Reader without also adding it to your shared items.