totally legendary web applications

Never to be outdone, Google Labs have put forth their own offering in the new trend for browser based RSS feed readers. Google Reader is a pleasantly light, Ajax powered feed reader that does all you’d expect it to do, with Googles traditionally simple layout and structure. A nice feature is that you can import an OPML feed as well as the ability to ’share’ feeds that you find interesting. This works basically like a miniature, private Digg of sorts, where the feeds that you mark as ’shared’ will become publicly viewable via a link that you are given. You need to do the actual sharing though, so you can publish this link on your site or Myspace etc platform.

With Google Reader, keeping up with your favorite websites is as easy as checking your email. Google Reader constantly checks your favorite news sites and blogs for new content. Use Google Reader’s built-in public page to easily share interesting items with your friends and family. Google Reader is totally free and works in most modern browsers, without any software to install.

Whilst I’m a great Google believer, I’m not so sure that I’ll trade up my Newsgator RSS feed reader just yet. Generally I’m not a fan of using readers to view my favorite sites, but I think that the Google Reader might be slightly too simple for my liking. Granted its a Labs project and as such, still in beta and still being developped, but I think that Google could have done a bit more with the interface and usability. Hopefully future versions will improve on this product.