Google do it again – Google reader

I know they’re a big evil corporation and everything, but I do love Google.

For the last couple of days I’ve been toying with different feed readers (my staple diet is usually either Blogbridge or Feedlounge). Some time ago I’d toyed with FeedDemon – when I bought that a free business grade subscription to Newsgator came with it. I’d never really used Newsgator all that much, but after reading this post on Khaled’s blog I thought I’d give it a try. It’s pretty good I must admit – both speedy and functional.

To get to the point, whilst browsing around the different feeds on Newsgator, I came across a post on the official Google blog (go there for more info) saying that a new version of Google Reader had just been released.

I was sceptical, when it first hit the masses it was pretty useless if you had anything more than around 10 feeds (I watch hundreds). Basic was an understatement. So, approaching with caution, off I went to take a look.

Was I ever surprised – it’s just like Gmail only for news feeds now! One feature that I always look for is the flag (save an article for later) feature, and Google has it with the starred items, just like in Gmail. You can now have folders to sort your feeds, a ‘shared’ folder for articles you want to share with others, and lots of other little features, all within a slick and simple interface. Load times have greatly improved too.

This is what Google Reader should have been the first time around. But hey, I’m not complaining, better late than never. Well done Google, this is another killer application for me, and best of all, it’s free!