After being a devoted (and paying) NewsGator user, I switched over to Google Reader earlier this summer. The service is really very good, though I don’t use the doodads like an automatically generated blog of shared items or graphed trends of my reading habits. But it’s not at all perfect.
I’ve been keeping a list of product requests meant to be emailed to the folks at the Googleplex. Instead, we figured it would be better as an open letter, and you can all submit your suggestions for improving Google Reader as well.
Hi Google Reader team,
Thanks for making a cool service that I use every day. I’d like to humbly suggest a few improvements that would make me even more beholden to you.
1. Refresh feeds more often: My biggest request would just be better performance. It frequently takes half an hour for a new item to be included. This would be the main reason I would switch back to NetNewsWire. Please, please make this better.
2. Accurate timeline: I’d rather have posts be dated when they were published than when they come in. It’s interesting to see how a conversation develops, in the order it actually happened. I’d rather have the time come from the sender than the receiver.
3. Author info: I’d like to see who the author of an item is in the at-a-glance information shown in the compressed view. I read a lot of multi-author outlets.
4. Video section: I think there’s a really great opportunity to be a web-based video aggregator, since you already do a much better job playing embedded video than anyone else I’ve seen. I’d like a dedicated section for video feeds with TV-like controls. Maybe I’m more interested in web video than your average user, but better tools for subscribing to (and also finding and being recommended, while you’re at it) online shows and clips would probably make more people watch them. And when I’m watching a clip and wander off to flip through other items, please don’t stop the video.
5. Folders or tags, pick one: I feel like you haven’t really figured out if you like tags or folders better. That’s not a big deal on a regular basis, but, for instance, I haven’t been able to find a way to rename a folder. Being able to drag and drop feeds into folders would be nice, too, though you don’t have to get too AJAXy for AJAX’s sake.
6. Select, mark read: I do use a set of core folders pretty heavily. I’d like to be able to select a chunk of posts and mark them as read, rather than having to either mark a whole folder or feed as read, or tick each item off one at a time.
7. Better counters: I’m not into this “100+” maximum number of posts in any folder. Can’t you just calculate the actual number? I like to know what I’m up against.
8. Gmail integration: Why aren’t you more tightly integrated with Gmail? An inbox of feeds is really not that different from an inbox of email.
Update: Search. How could I forget! Following performance, this would be my highest-priority feature addition. Like the commenters are saying, how can Google, of all companies, leave out search?
Thanks!
How can search not be included on the list? I mean, this is Google…
Also:
- add search
- remove duplicate stories
- 10 stories per page on the mobile version is not enough
- need the ability to share on the mobile version
My #2: Display authors in mobile interface. (Same reason as your #3). They’re missing for some reason.
My #1 is your #1.
Glad you posted this Liz.
D’oh! Search was so high on my list I accidentally left it off. Will definitely add it up top.
I love Google Reader so much, but my biggest complaint is that I subscribe to many (7-10) blogs that have pictures attached to every post that don’t come through on the Reader. It’s a little frustrating as the picture is nice to have. Probably the blog’s RSS feeds fault, not Google’s, but perhaps there’s a workaround.
@anon: The share feature has now been added to the mobile version. I use it all the time.
I was going to say search, but it looks like you updated your post. I really can’t understand why Google of all companies wouldn’t have search.
An offline mobile client would be swell – I need something to read while stuck on a flight.
Liz is spot on about Gmail/Google Reader integration. It’s like Google’s not really trying…
A tag cloud could be nice also, in one shot you could see what’s going on in your feeds.
I also agree that search should be integrated.
It won’t happen, but… I want del.icio.us integration. Just like “share” but it will open a del.icio.us form where I can tag, add a short comment, etc. Oh, and I want the original URL bookmarked in FeedBurned feeds, not the feedburner redirect URL than may not be there after some time.
I’d like some very easy to access rating system. I subscribe to a load of feeds and then skip through them in expanded view. So I appear to read them according to trends.
I would like to be able to rate them (maybe just a plus, neutral, or minus) as relevant or interesting. Over time I could then work out which feeds to dump.
I could use star to do this, but I also need that to mark items I might wish to single out for later attention.
I hope this makes sense.
I agree with folder management. I have not found a way to rename or even delete folders…
I want it to react to me having read something much quicker. Now when I scroll past an item or have just one new item to read on a blog it doesn’t get tagged as read. That’s annoying.
And since this is an open letter to Google, I’m going to add something that I would like to see added to their Adsense program. A way to send (a part of) the revenue directly to charitable causes. For the entire idea see here: http://lunaticthought.blogspot.com/2007/03/adsense-for-charity-english-version-of.html Oh and if you like the idea, blog about it or help to put some pressure on Google.
The idea
It would be great if it would be possible to select in Google Adsense that (part of) the revenue will be sent to charity. This way it will become easy to contribute to open source projects or other good causes. This will increase the income of those charities. It will also become possible for accounts that generate little revenue to send the money that is there to a charity. (And yeah, Microsoft and Yahoo can also implement this idea, but unfortunately for them most of the money is at Google at this moment)
I think the only thing is really important is the SEARCH. I am a Tech Mag editor and i loose frequently some of blogs which could be a story for me. Than it become impossible to find it in the folders. Despite the fact that google is a Search engine most of the News Readers include simple search engines. May be they are so into search and could see it is missing in one of their service.
Very good points!
Search would be at the top of my list. However, another very desirable feature would be the ability to read posts out of order without having to set more recent posts to not read.
The ability to change the “from” field when emailing postings. Sometimes I want to sent posting to friends and family using my personal mail. Other times I want to send to colleagues and would like to use my work mail.
Rename folders possible!
Click “manage subscribtion in rightmost corner of folderview”
Gmail integration of Greader possible in firefox with the better gmail plugin from lifehacker – http://tinyurl.com/yo3r2j
Note; Not sure faster update of feeds really matter for the average user … only us feed-junkie’s
The non-display of images must be a pc-specific problem, images are displayed in the reader
search ….. yes, wonder how they could “forget” that
Good points. I have been wishing for a search within my subscribed feeds since the day I started using Google Reader.
As a user of GR for hours every day, these points are so, so refreshing to read. I hope even just one gets taken on-board on Google’s side.
You used to be able to have your google news alerts dumped into your reader (as well as being sent to your email address). For some reason they turned this feature off. It was really handy and helpful. Bring it back!
Oh Please somebody tell them to make those “Home, All-Items, Shared-Items, Starred-Items, Trends” links horizontal and give me that space for ever increasing list of subscriptions. They should understand, not everybody has 19, 22 and more inches of screen real estate. For my small laptop, there is too much of screen space wastage.
Nice list.
How about a “Mark unread” option?
I use the Expanded View in the Google reader. If I start reading a post and mid-way I move to some other task. There is no way to get back to that post other than searching for it on the blog. More often than not I forget what it was that caught my attention in the first place. :-)
1: Search
2: Smart Digg Button per Article
2: Del.icio.us Button per Article
I am not sure I get the point about Gmail integration. Feeds is right there below the inbox in Gmail. It’s a little clunky looking but it’s not too bad.
I agree with the counter point. I subscribe to 76 feeds, many of which I just skim. I would like to be able to prioritize my reading based on which blogs have the most to wade through.
I just realised why Feeds are in my Gmail….I have the better Gmail plugin for Firefox: doh.
I don’t like the look of Reader, nor Gmail. I have a Mac/Aqua look to Reader now by using the Stylish plug in: http://userstyles.org/stylish/ and a modified style sheet.
The userstyle.org site has about 20 different Reader styles.
I’d definitely like to see more integration overall with Google. I feel like all of my Google services are so separate it discourages me of utilizing Google to its maximum capabilities.
Excellent points, all of which need to be implemented.
One of my pet peeves with the Google Reader system has been that of the “100+” unread items counter. 101? or 700? I hate not knowing the exact number. It may be trivial, but still annoying.
Yes, search. And I would like to be able to log on to Reader, and to all my Googlage, with my OpenID.
I’m with Gayathri and others who mentioned it. Better folder management and renaming is a must. My own wishlist however would also include some way of aggregating posts and generating a single file of selected posts, such that these could be printed within a .doc file, as I do at present.
I look at a Blog (RSS) reader and blog writer tool as personal knowledge management tool. I am in the process of drafting a white paper – where the central idea is a combined tool i.e. Google Reader + Blogger = Personal KM tool. More at: http://suvendusahoo.wordpress.com/a-comprehensive-personal-knowledge-management-tool/
This is in a draft stage – please leave your comments.
thanks
Suvendu Sahoo
have been thinking a lot on what u posted these days. have some initial food for though ready. I baically wish to imrpove usability. Have posted some thoughts on http://www.jatspeak.com/blog/?p=13
and going to refine them in 2 days..
i was expecting this pretty much early from google, but it seems smart is not always smart..
Ashish
My Google Wishlist (mostly in a company):
In the end it comes down to google’s mission, to make the worlds information accessible. There is an enormous amount of tacit knowledge stored in peoples bookmarks, rss-readers, read webpages, e-mail boxes etc. Microsoft gave us the office tools to make information, but failed us badly in making it accessible. Google is our one great hope in capitalizing on this. So Google give us Google Apps with:
Sounds like a rather nice businessplan for the Google Apps division.
While all of the listed points would be welcomed improvements, the biggest pain for me at the moment is that when I go offline I cannot order my feeds in oldest-first.
Drives me nuts!
Here is a solution for search and more:
http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2007/07/20/pimp-up-google-reader-with-15-firefox-hacks/”
It provides a number of different hacks for Google Reader including a search, which I haven’t used yet, notifier, delicious, integration with Gmail, and more. Check these out, I have been using some for a while.
Note: for Firefox only
Eran
I vote for search and adding the links to other Google services that appear at the top of other Google services.
As well as not going into settings to delete a feed from my reader. Just have a delete button beside the feed.
I tried Google Reader, and I really want to like it – but I don’t like the way it center around tags instead of folders. Some things I love tags for, but at least give me the option to use folders any way I want.
Removing duplicate stories is a very good idea.
Have they added HTTP-Auth? My subscription to Daring Fireball is what keeps me from even investigating this service.
–Joe
Here here to number 6. I read about 77 blogs when writing for my non-profit and it drive me nuts that I can mark a chunk as read, instead of doing one or all.
I also would love to be able to sort through starred items by date posted by author, date starred, blog, tag, and even title.