Google Reader’s new “share note” feature: the video review

May 5, 2008 By

I love the idea of Google Reader’s new “share note” feature, but find it lacking in implementation — watch along in this video review.

What’s really wrong with it?

1. It’s breaking on my machines. No way to cancel note that I can see, and UI is not coming up. I’m sure that’s a temporary problem, so let’s discount that.

2. It’s causing a LOT of new duplication of items (which was a major problem in Google Reader before this, but is even worse after). Why? Well, I share one item, then I decide “I’d like add a note to that” so I click “share with note.” Now it shares it again with the note added on.

3. No way I can see of removing the note once it’s shared.

4. Unlike FriendFeed, I can’t add a note to other people’s shared items.

5. Unlike FriendFeed we can’t see threaded discussion under the headlines.

6. I can’t figure out a keyboard shortcut.

Speaking of FriendFeed. Check out the commentary about this feature. I’m sharing the best sites I see that talk about it. Welcome to the World Wide Talk Show.

UPDATE: I just added a video comment on TechCrunch’s post about this. Seesmic posts are pretty cool. This time the actual UI worked fine, but the post was shared twice.

Filed Under: technology industry Tagged With: Aggregator, FriendFeed, Google, Google Reader, news, RSS
  • http://www.livecrunch.com/2008/05/05/share-anything-anywhere-with-google-reader/ Share Anything Anywhere with Google Reader | Live Crunch

    [...] about it read at google reader blog Here is some opinion by Scobleizer (ROB) also some good review by Mashable and review by Micro [...]

  • http://handelaar.org/ John Handelaar

    It’s far worse than that.

    Whatever you added to your “shared items” feed, there’s currently one item in it unread, according to my Reader view. And unless I remove the feed entirely I can no longer read anything at all. The entire right hand frame is blank.

    Sorry, cutting you.

  • http://handelaar.org John Handelaar

    It’s far worse than that.

    Whatever you added to your “shared items” feed, there’s currently one item in it unread, according to my Reader view. And unless I remove the feed entirely I can no longer read anything at all. The entire right hand frame is blank.

    Sorry, cutting you.

  • http://robertscobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    John: wild. I’ll have to check on that. I’ll go and delete something and see if things get better.

  • http://robertscobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    John: wild. I’ll have to check on that. I’ll go and delete something and see if things get better.

  • John Doe

    John -

    Try switching to Expanded View from List View … I had the same thing happen. Probably a bug.

  • John Doe

    John -

    Try switching to Expanded View from List View … I had the same thing happen. Probably a bug.

  • http://icontact.wordpress.com/ Arvind

    I am waiting for a keyboard shortcut, tat is as simple as shift+s

  • http://icontact.wordpress.com Arvind

    I am waiting for a keyboard shortcut, tat is as simple as shift+s

  • http://messagedance.com/macbabe Veronica Matsumoto

    I have been playing with MessageDance a little (not a whole lot) and so far I impressed with their approach and application. Looks like they truly do the anywhere to anywhere blogging happen. I have been using Google Reader -> My Blogspot via MessageDance and it is a breeze. You guys check it out. I think (I’m not sure) they are still in private beta. All though UI can be little more sexy but overall it hits the spot. The best thing I liked about their approach is “They make blogger’s blog page as a center of the universe” with this approach bloggers get to decide how they want to interact and influence their readers.

  • http://messagedance.com/macbabe Veronica Matsumoto

    I have been playing with MessageDance a little (not a whole lot) and so far I impressed with their approach and application. Looks like they truly do the anywhere to anywhere blogging happen. I have been using Google Reader -> My Blogspot via MessageDance and it is a breeze. You guys check it out. I think (I’m not sure) they are still in private beta. All though UI can be little more sexy but overall it hits the spot. The best thing I liked about their approach is “They make blogger’s blog page as a center of the universe” with this approach bloggers get to decide how they want to interact and influence their readers.

  • http://www.sikantis.net/ sikantis

    Anyway, it’s interesting.

  • http://www.sikantis.net sikantis

    Anyway, it’s interesting.

  • http://www.somenice.com/ Andrew

    I agree this is not as slick as it needs to be but I have wanted to annotate shared items on the odd occasion something needed explaining. I also find myself wanting to share items on websites that don’t have a rss feed like del.icio.us. I guess friendfeed takes care of this but I have been using Google reader longer and it’s where I spend most of my time.

    btw, nice redesign Robert

  • http://www.somenice.com Andrew

    I agree this is not as slick as it needs to be but I have wanted to annotate shared items on the odd occasion something needed explaining. I also find myself wanting to share items on websites that don’t have a rss feed like del.icio.us. I guess friendfeed takes care of this but I have been using Google reader longer and it’s where I spend most of my time.

    btw, nice redesign Robert

  • http://duffsdevice.blogspot.com/ Ryan Svoboda

    I’ve been wanting this feature for a long time, particularly the ability to comment on an article and add it to my shared items.

    I’ve noticed what I believe to be a huge oversight by the Google Reader team. You are given the ability to edit the html markup of the article when you add a note, which I can only presume would be used to provide a note about a specific part of the article.

    However, this also allows you to change or add anything you want to a post. I’ve written up concerns with this in more detail: Google Reader allows me to (surreptitiously) alter the text of any article.

  • http://duffsdevice.blogspot.com Ryan Svoboda

    I’ve been wanting this feature for a long time, particularly the ability to comment on an article and add it to my shared items.

    I’ve noticed what I believe to be a huge oversight by the Google Reader team. You are given the ability to edit the html markup of the article when you add a note, which I can only presume would be used to provide a note about a specific part of the article.

    However, this also allows you to change or add anything you want to a post. I’ve written up concerns with this in more detail: Google Reader allows me to (surreptitiously) alter the text of any article.

  • http://geekmarketing.net/ Lore

    Google Reader shared items, Google Reader shared items with notes, Google Reader starred items, Google Notebook, Google Bookmarks, Google Shared Stuff… Don’t you think that there are too many unrelated ways to save a page and share something?

  • http://geekmarketing.net Lore

    Google Reader shared items, Google Reader shared items with notes, Google Reader starred items, Google Notebook, Google Bookmarks, Google Shared Stuff… Don’t you think that there are too many unrelated ways to save a page and share something?

  • http://breyten.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/links-for-2008-05-06/ links for 2008-05-06 « Breyten’s Dev Blog

    [...] Google Reader?s new ?share note? feature: the video review (tags: totag) [...]

  • ourmaps

    Implementation issues aside I think these new features make a big step towards a universal web annotation tool. Bear in mind that you can now post notes (without sharing) to your shared feed/page which means Google Reader is getting closer to what I’ve been calling Google ReWriter for more than a year. Now it’s encroaching on Blogger’s territory and will eventually assimilate that tool. No need for separate web/feed reading and publishing tools when you can do it all with a single annotation suite - Google ReWriter.

  • ourmaps

    Implementation issues aside I think these new features make a big step towards a universal web annotation tool. Bear in mind that you can now post notes (without sharing) to your shared feed/page which means Google Reader is getting closer to what I’ve been calling Google ReWriter for more than a year. Now it’s encroaching on Blogger’s territory and will eventually assimilate that tool. No need for separate web/feed reading and publishing tools when you can do it all with a single annotation suite - Google ReWriter.

  • http://www.dariosalvelli.com Dario Salvelli

    Sounds like the “Share Stuff” feature: do u remember? ;)

  • http://www.dariosalvelli.com Dario Salvelli

    Sounds like the “Share Stuff” feature: do u remember? ;)

  • http://www.fpettit.com/index.php/2008/05/06/google-reader-gets-notes/ Google Reader Gets Notes | FPettit.com

    [...] Google Reader’s new “share note” feature: the video review [...]

  • http://ninepointeightone.net/ David Miller

    The keyboard shortcut is +d, you can find all of the shortcuts by just hitting ?

    HTH
    -dave

  • http://ninepointeightone.net David Miller

    The keyboard shortcut is +d, you can find all of the shortcuts by just hitting ?

    HTH
    -dave

  • http://blog.justpulse.com/2008/05/09/extra-reading-for-google-readers-share-note/ Extra reading for Google Reader’s Share Note | PulseBlog

    [...] ”Google Reader’s Share Notes” [...]

  • http://unnamedtech.com/index.php/2008/05/08/episode-11-flavored-gravity/ Episode #11 - Flavored Gravity

    [...] Online New Del.icio.us Add-on Released, Jives With Firefox 3 Yahoo To Flag Malware Sites In Search Results Google readers share note “lacking in implementation “ [...]

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