How To Fix The New Google Reader

As you’ve probably heard by now, Google Reader was updated yesterday with a completely new UI. After the initial shock (change is scary) and once I realized that all the features were still there (I thought they had been removed, but they were just hidden), I was able to calmly assess the changes and determine whether I really hated the new version of Reader or whether I loved it.

The truth is…well…neither, actually. I could live with it, I guess. I’m not raving about how great the new look is, though. For one thing, I spend my day in Google Reader – all day long, I’m scrolling through feeds. And while I agree that a stark white background works on a site like Google.com, a full day in the new greader is somewhat painful on the eyes. The new Reader is dang bright.

Thankfully, I was not alone in my opinion. Some enterprising Greasemonkey userscript creator named trashrockx has now saved me from the glare of the new Google Reader and even made some improvements along the way.

With their New Google Reader Tweaks script, which works in either Greasemonkey or Stylish, you can make the new Google Reader easier on your eyes. The script brings back the blue sidebar (yay!) and makes it easier to see which feed items have been read. It does this by lightening up the font on the read items to a pale gray instead of leaving them as they are now – a shade of black. It’s a subtle change, but it really helps. The script also highlights items in a pale yellow when your mouse cursor hovers over them so you can be sure you’re clicking on the right item. Finally, the header at the top has been changed, and while that wasn’t a usability issue for me, I have to admit I like the new one better.

Here’s an example of the script in action (click to see larger):

Before

After

Now that’s a Google Reader I can live with!

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I’ve been taking a closer look at my Google Reader feeds lately, and, as always, I’m trying to stem the tide so the signal can rise above the noise. I’ve done a little spring cleaning, which for me doesn’t mean unsubscribing – I’m always hesitant to do that – but instead, I’ve been re-categorizing.

Is that feed really a “Can’t Miss” read? Shouldn’t that blogger be on my B-List? Doesn’t this feed belong in my “Ideas” folder?

One of the things that made the most difference was the addition of a brand-new folder I’m calling “noisy tech news.” This is now the home to any feed that drives me batty with zillions of posts per day yet doesn’t really provide that much signal. Why keep these feeds you may wonder? Well, for one thing, it’s great to have them in there for searches.

I’ve also put the aggregate feeds in here for sites like CNET and other producers of mass amounts of content. It’s not to say that CNET doesn’t have signal, but when you subscribe to a bunch of their feeds, you’re likely to see duplicate items and a lot of stuff that’s not relevant to you. However, other CNET favs, like Caroline McCarthy’s The Social for example, went elsewhere so I don’t miss them.

Although information devourer  Louis Gray might cringe at the thought, I can now happily mark this folder as read after a quick scan of headlines without feeling like I’ve missed too much.

Over-Sharers, I’m Looking At You

Now that I’ve gotten my subscriptions under control (ahem, for now), I’m turning my eye to the one area that’s still a bit out of control: you guys. You know know who you are. I mean, I thought I was bad (am I?) with my sharing of maybe 20-30 items per day in Google Reader, but some of you are sharing double that, triple even! Seriously, hundreds of shares. Daily! And all at once! What’s the deal? Now, I know I could just hide those over-sharers using the Google Reader “Hide” button, but the thing is, some of that stuff is actually very good. I don’t want to miss it. But then again, some of it…well, I could do without.

I’m torn. 

Of course what’s share-worthy is an entirely subjective notion, which is one thing that makes the Friends feature so great. It lets interesting stories bubble up and catch my attention, even though I may not subscribe to (or want to subscribe to) the originating blogs.

But what can be done about the uber-sharing? Should I just suck it up and hit j, j, j, j (the keyboard shortcut for flying through feeds) all day long? Should I start scanning headlines here too? Should I gasp hide the noisiest folks from sight?

Does anyone else have this problem? Suggestions welcome. 

As you may know, I recently decided I couldn’t wait any longer for my iPhone (I’m waiting until my T-Mobile contract expires), so I bought an iPod Touch instead. For the most part, this has turned out rather well. I can now try a lot of the iPhone apps that are available today with the exception of those that are location-based and require the iPhone’s GPS. Since most places I go have Wi-Fi, the lack of “internet everywhere” hasn’t been a huge drawback except for on a few occasions like our recent road trip to Palm Beach, where I was stuck playing games and surfing the horrid little browser on my Blackberry Pearl.

Yesterday, it occurred to me that an offline RSS reader would be an ideal app to add to my iPod Touch since reading through feeds is one of my primary activities…in life, it seems. (That has to change by the way, I want my life back). What would be even better than an offline RSS reader, I decided, would be an offline RSS reader that synced with my Google Reader account. I didn’t imagine this concoction even existed, but I searched through the app store anyway.

And then, there it was! An RSS reader that syncs with Google Reader. It’s called Byline and it’s available in the app store for $9.99. Now normally, I don’t purchase paid applications, but this one sounded too good to be true.

Unfortunately, it was.

After setting up my account, the app began archiving 58 items. 58?, I wondered…why only 58 when I have over 900 feeds in my Google Reader? I can blow through 50 items in a matter of minutes! Then it occurred to me to delve into the settings. Surely, there’s a setting that says “take my whole dang reader offline,” right? Well, no. You can specify how many “new” items should display: 25 (the default), 50, 75, 100, or 200. I changed that to 200.  There’s also a setting under “offline browsing” to display “new items,” which is strangely set to “off” by default. I turned that on, too.

Now the app is archiving 376 items. (Where is it getting these numbers?) Although that’s better, it’s still not my entire set of feeds. And since there’s no way to customize which folders/tags are archived, who knows what I’ll get. I can’t browse by tags either, whether online or off.

While I am somewhat grateful that an offline Google Reader even exists, my affection for what could have been an amazing application is tempered by the fact that, quite frankly, it’s doing a half-a**ed job. I realize that not everyone would want to wait while 1000+ items are archived, but if I’m planning ahead for an extended period when I’m going to be away from Wi-Fi (road trip, airline flight, etc.), I see no reason why I can’t specify that in the settings and then wait patiently.

I guess I’m still in search of a decent offline Google Reader, then. Any other suggestions?

FriendFeed

Better FriendFeed is a new Greasemonkey script based on the work done by Duncan Riley and AJ Batac. Basically, it’s a bunch of great FriendFeed scripts in one. With Better FriendFeed, you can do the following:

• Add and remove custom tabs to FriendFeed simply by specifying the URL and/or favicon UR
• Activate Cleaner FriendFeed to make everything a little "prettier"
• Configuration is located at Tools->Greasemonkey->User Script Commands->Better FriendFeed

The script creator notes that you should probably disable any other FriendFeed tabs scripts before installing this one.  However, I left my FriendFeed Tabs script installed (which adds Techmeme in a tab) and had no issues.

By default, the Better FriendFeed script adds Google Reader, Gmail, and Identi.ca to FriendFeed. Wow, I have those tabs open all the time! This is excellent. 

Oh, and how cool is this? If you have any questions or concerns, you can “dent” him on Identi.ca! (http://identi.ca/rahsheen) Nice!

Feedly

Next up, Feedly. For those of you who don’t know what or why Feedly is incredibly awesome, here’s a guide to get you started.

You wouldn’t really think of Feedly as something that needs a facelift, but it got one anyway by way of the Stylish Extension for Firefox. A blogger by the name of SLAX created a nice gray/blue dark skin for the site. You can click here to install it into Stylish.

Happy Friday!

Apparently, I missed this little update on the Feedly blog: “feedly + google search experiment.” It read:

One of the first pieces of feedback we received when we launched beta 1 was to extend feedly’s search capabilities. Paul was the first to raise this issue but many more requested a similar feature. We chewed on the idea for a few weeks, experimenting will multiple approaches. We will over the next two weeks push out some of the proof of concepts and listen to what people think.

The first proof of concept is integration with Google Search. Here is an example: when you go on Google and search for iphone 3G, you have the option to see the feedly search results for iphone 3G:

 

This approach tries to add a pinch of personalization and social filtering to the search experience.

I’ve been googling for awhile since that blog post about the update, so I don’t know how I didn’t see this in action until now, but it’s…well frankly, it’s incredible. Check it out:

Hmmm, I think I have to go blog this for RWW now. It’s just too good.

Over the weekend, Louis Gray posted on his blog “Roll Your Own Blog Leaderboard With Google Reader Trends.” After seeing his article, of course I had to look at My Google Reader trends, too. A couple of things immediately jumped out at me. One, I’m guilty of self-promotion and My Google Reader trends certainly reveal that. Two, some of my top shared items are from other people’s shared items. I’m a re-sharer!

Let’s take a look at whose items made my list. Here is the stuff I share:

1. Rob Diana’s Recommendations (wow, go Rob!)
2. Read/WriteWeb (guilty!)
3. Items shared by louisgray
4. Corvida Raven’s Recommendations 
5. (jeff)isageek’s recommendations
6. Franklin P’s recommendations
7. louisgray.com
8. Caleb Elston’s Recommendations
9. Shey Smith’s Recommendations
10. SheGeeks
11. Mashable! (I believe this is Steven’s doing)
12. WinExtra (see?)
13. Items shared by Robert Scoble (no list is complete without Scoble)
14. SitePoint Blogs (I miss Josh on RWW, but he’s still his awesome self here)
15. chrisbrogan.com’s recommendations
16. Silicon Alley Insider
17. Adam Ostrow’s Recommendations
18. MG Siegler’s Recommendations
19. Profy.Com (I told you to read this blog)
20. sarahintampa (guilty again!)
21. The Inquisitr » Tech
22. CenterNetworks (a one-man blogging machine!)
23. VentureBeat
24. TechCrunch
25. Alexander van Elsas’s Recommendations
26. LiveSide - Windows Live news and interviews
27. The Social Times
28. ParisLemon
29. Steve Spalding’s Recommendations
30. David Risley
31. AppScout
32. Lifehacker
33. I’m Not Actually a Geek
34. Regular Geek
35. Inside Facebook
36. Marshall Kirkpatrick
37. MediaPost | Online Media News
38. Download Squad
39. Alexander van Elsas’s Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior
40. SEO and Tech Daily
41. CrackBerry.com blogs
42. Mark Evans
43. The Social Networker
44. ZDNet Blogs
45. Stay N’ Alive

The reason why some of these items say “Recommendations” and some say “Items Shared” is due to the Feedly Firefox plugin. If you haven’t already heard, the Feedly plugin taps into Google Reader and gives you access to anyone’s Shared Items, even if they don’t appear in your Google Friends list. This is extremely useful since the only way to be “Google Friends” with someone is to either email with them or chat with them. But with Feedly, you get immediate access to anyone’s shares, just by following them on Feedly.

For example, if you want to see my shares, follow me here: http://www.feedly.com/feedly#preview/user/15218633955327620808/state/com.google/broadcast

If you’re using Feedly and share tech/social media stuff, I would like to follow you too, so please leave your Feedly profile URL in the comments.

No iPhone 2.0 yet? Me neither. I’m sticking with my Blackberry Pearl until January when my T-Mobile contract runs out. (I’m nothing if not practical.) The iPhone news is killing me though, so I thought I would spread a little love for the other smartphone for a change:

Zumobi has come to the Blackberry at last.

I’ve been interested in Zumobi for some time and have been blogging about it on Channel 10 for awhile now. (I tried it on RWW, too, but I think that audience is more wrapped up in the iPhone, so it fizzled.) So, of course when I saw the news today, I was darned excited.

Why care about Zumobi? Well, despite what you hear in the blogosphere, the entire world does not have an iPhone yet. Yes, iPhone is important; yes it’s amazing; yes, it’s game changing…but that doesn’t mean that innovation should stop for the other platforms.

If you’re unfamiliar with Zumobi, this demo will give you the idea:

Basically, the software gives you a unique way to browse the web – through the use of tiles. This format, ideal for small screens, displays websites as widgetized small squares which you “browse” by zooming in on them. From the app’s configuration menu, you can choose which tiles you want from a gallery of choices and you can also make your own from any RSS feed.

How does Zumobi fare now that it’s been ported to Blackberry? Well CNet complained that loading Twitter and Facebook apps were slow – I’m installing it now, so I’ll get back with you on this later today as to whether this is true or not.

To get Zumobi for your Blackberry, you need to go to get.zumobi.com from your Blackberry’s browser. Signing up for the service via the website will not work – you’ll receive the SMS message, but clicking the link will give you the message that your phone is not supported.

Zumobi currently only supports Blackberry models 8100, 8300, and 8800.

As social media enthusiasts, we’re always playing with the latest shiny new objects – we’re blogging about them, tweaking them, and putting them through their paces. However, it’s rare that we find new web apps or services that we really fall in love with. When we do – you’ll know. We’ll talk about them so much that it becomes borderline ridiculous. Services like Twitter and FriendFeed for example, have gotten so much coverage in the blogosphere, that those who never drank the Kool-Aid have become decidedly sick of hearing about their awesomeness. However, as of today, I’ve started using two services that I immediately fell in love with. I’m not going to say they’re going to rival the blogosphere insanity that Twitter caused – they’re much too niche for that. But they are pretty amazing.

The services I’m referring to are Feedly and Xoopit. I’m not going to delve in and give thorough and exhausting reviews because they’ve both been reviewed to death, but I’ll give you the highlights.

Feedly

First up is Feedly, this service/Firefox plugin broke onto the scene Monday thanks to Louis Gray. The service is a social start page, but unlike web 1.0 start pages filled with widgets and lolcat pictures, Feedly focuses on leveraging your Google Reader subscriptions to present you the news. There are many different views of your feeds available – a magazine cover which uses your own reading habits to show off the most interesting stories; a what’s new page that combines recent updates with recommended stories from friends; the wall which integrates Twitter and FriendFeed updates as well as other news sources like Netvibes, My Yahoo! or “Best of” streams of news. With Feedly, you can annotate, share, tweet, recommend, email, and search (thanks to built in Google Search) items. But the craziest part is that Feedly is 100% synched up with Google Reader. Read it in Feedly and it’s marked as read in Google Reader. This is downright incredible to me and makes Feedly one of the best web apps I’ve seen in ages.

More on Feedly:

• The Last Podcast: Feedly: Bring Your Feeds Home
• Scribkin: Quick News From Around the Net

Xoopit

Also on my radar is Xoopit, which got covered by just about everyone today. Xoopit is essentially a Gmail search tool. With Xoopit, you can search for files, photos, and videos by means of yes, another Firefox plugin. In a Xoopit sidebar loaded right in your Gmail inbox, you can view all your media hidden deep in your mailbox. Xoopit also offers integration with other services on the social web like Flickr, Facebook, and MySpace, so you can easily share items with others.

Unfortunately, there’s a problem with Xoopit – and one I didn’t see mentioned in any of today’s breathless reviews – Xoopit doesn’t currently support Firefox 3. Oops! Didn’t we all just download that yesterday? Yep, sure enough, no FF3. I found this out after downloading the plugin, of course. Script errors galore led me to the help page where I read that devastating news. 

However, they say that they’re working on FF3, and the service is so promising that I’ve subscribed to their blog in anticipation of the day they announce this has been fixed.

It’s great when you see a service that continually improves as Toluu has been doing for some time. Today’s news is only the latest in a long line of updates from this RSS sharing-and-matching service, and it includes the arrival of more features as well as some tweaks to existing ones.

As of today, Toluu has added a way to view popular posts from a particular feed as well as see who else has subscribed to that feed through the addition of new tabs at the top of the feed:

When you click on the “Subscribers” tab, you can see which feeds those users have added recently to Toluu:

Another highly requested feature now added is the addition of date/timestamps to posts so you can tell whether or not a feed you’re interested in adding is still current or if it hasn’t been updated in ages. A final tweak involves the contacts page’s load speed – it has now increased by about 5x, which should help encourage users to explore people’s contacts lists. With all of these latest updates, the focus is on helping you better decide which feeds you should subscribe to so you won’t end up with excess feeds that you don’t really enjoy.

This should really help those of you who are participating in RSS Reset Month like Corvida and Phil are.

More Coverage:

Toluu Just Got Better: New Feed Page Views and More! – Detailed Review

Toluu Rolls Out A Slew Of New Features  - Billy has invites!

Toluu Feed Page & Speed Enhancements – So does Franklin!

Social Media Roundup: Toluu, FriendFeed, and Twhirl Updates – Corvida posts on all the latest social media news

Maybe you haven’t joined FriendFeed yet, but that’s no reason why you still can’t enjoy the resources it provides. A handful of links from the service can act as your own personal information filter for finding out what’s currently hot on the net without you ever needing to sign in. How is that possible? By using the publicly available links for the services on FriendFeed.

Here are a few examples:

http://friendfeed.com/public?service=stumbleupon

http://friendfeed.com/public?service=blog

http://friendfeed.com/public?service=googlereader

http://friendfeed.com/public?service=flickr

http://friendfeed.com/public?service=digg

With 35 services to choose from, that’s a lot of pre-filtered content you can access. What’s even better is that each link like those above has an RSS feed attached to it. And again, you can access those feeds without needing to have a FriendFeed account - just scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the orange RSS icon.

For example,

StumbleUpon RSS: http://friendfeed.com/public?service=stumbleupon&format=atom

Blog Posts RSS: http://friendfeed.com/public?service=blog&format=atom

Google Reader Shares RSS: http://friendfeed.com/public?service=googlereader&format=atom

Flickr RSS: http://friendfeed.com/public?service=flickr&format=atom

Digg RSS: http://friendfeed.com/public?service=digg&format=atom

Even if you are already heavily involved with FriendFeed, subscribing to these public links will give you a glimpse of the community’s action outside of your circle of friends. But be warned - these feeds aren’t for those that fear the unread count in their RSS reader. As FriendFeed gains in popularity, the number of postings will grow even more so than it is now - which is quite a lot. However, the feeds might be a nice addition to your iGoogle homepage - something to glance at when you’re there, but not something you need to constantly read. (thanks, Jeetblog)