Sunday, February 18, 2007

Mobile Google Reader

Google has made great improvements to its rss feed reader. One improvement implements AJAX so that the reader updates right before your eyes as new feed items become available. The beauty of this is that you don't have to refresh the page to become aware of the updates.
Another improvement that the new google reader has made is that you can share stories on your website or blog. If you are into sharing, like me, this is a handy feature.
I am saving the best feature about the Google Reader for last. The new reader allows you to read news feeds on your phone. It starts by displaying the most recent news items. You can then navigate by number (1 to read more, 0 to go to the next headline). Google also goes through the trouble of stripping the extra graphics that would make phone viewing almost impossible. This saves a lot of time that you would have spent waiting for a page to download. Finally, the mobile version also allows you to "star" items you find interesting. By doing this, you mark the item for sharing later, or have the settings such that you share directly from the phone.
This has been a great improvement in reading news and blogs for me. I can keep up on the latest without being tethered to a desktop computer or feeling frustrated with slow downloading. If you want to try the mobile reader and have a google account, go to http://www.google.com/reader/m And try it out.

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