Google Reader offers Offline Mode!
Finally! What all RSS readers have been waiting for! Google is now offering an offline version of Google Reader. You’ll now see a “Go Offline” link on the top right that, when clicked, prompts you to install Google Gears. Gears is an open source extension to the browser that lets you store and serve data locally as well as housing data in its own internal relational database. You simply go to a page that is configured to use Gears and give Gears permission to run content on that domain name. This also means offline Gmail, Gdocs, and Gcal!
Google Reader on the Wii
It seems those crazy Googlers have done it again. Yesterday on the Google Reader blog, Mihai Parparita posted about his experience using Google Reader in the Wii’s Opera-based “internet channel”. In his words:
As I was recovering from Wii elbow, I began to explore the capabilities of the Opera-based Internet Channel. It occurred that Reader may be a lot of fun on the Wii, especially with many photo and video feeds.
So naturally Mihai and his crack dev team went into their coding cave and emerged with a version of the Google Reader web app modified for the Wii Internet Channel. It even integrates with Wiimote controls:
- up/down: scroll up/down
- right/left: next/previous item
- 1 button: show subscriptions
- 2 button: show links
When showing subscriptions:
- up/down: previous/next subscription
- right: select current subscription
- left: close
- -/+: collapse/expand folder
Check this out if you want to see a demo of what the Wii GReader interface looks like. Google Reader just keeps getting better. Oh and here’s his demo video:
via Official Google Reader Blog
Google Reader
I think I may have just made the switch to Google Reader yesterday… for good. I’d been using the combination of NetNewsWire (on my MacBook) and Newsgator Online, primarily for the synching features. However, I was playing around with the revamped Google Reader last night and I’ll have to say, it’s the best I’ve used. The downside to all the other online readers I’ve used (i.e. Rojo, Newsgator, Attensa, FeedLounge, et cetera) was first and foremost speed. Google Reader is fast, easy to use, and one of my favorite features is the simplicity of browsing for feeds. Another neat feature is the ability to “share” links inside the Reader and add this data via a widget-like box to your own website. Also, other readers seem to have a hard time indexing popular RSS sources… at least for my taste. I tend to keep my reader limited to real publications (blogs and news sites) and a few other sources, I don’t like cluttering it up with data feeds from random other places, such as Digg, Flickr, and others.
Another standout feature of the new Google Reader is the introduction of keyboard shortcuts. The more it seems like a desktop application, the more I like it. Automatically. One negative point to most web-apps, however, is the ever-growing need for internet connectivity everywhere. Most web-app substitutes for desktop apps fall short when you’d like to work on a document offline, like Zoho and Writely. But in the case of a feed reader (short of having a zillion feeds you haven’t read in a while), synching and taking that feed data with you offline really isn’t that important. Bottom line, this new reader is great and hopefully it gets even better.
Online Feed Readers
I just recently listened to Mike Arrington’s TalkCrunch podcast concerning their overall breakdown of the online feed readers. I decided I’d go check some out for myself.
I basically checked out all the readers they discussed, save Feedlounge, due to the cost factor. I had used the Newsgator product before, and I liked it alright, but it seems if I was solely a Mac user it would be more useful (considering their NetNewsWire product syncs with Newsgator online, but currently there’s only an OS X version). In the end I’ve decided Rojo is a great product. It’s fast, Ajax-y, and the social networking features really interested me. Lately I’ve been using reddit’s online reader (super-light and beta I believe) and the FeedReader desktop application, which is open-source and pretty slick, but I just use too many computers to not have the read/unread synchronization. I think it’s now safe to say that the combination of digg and my Rojo feeds will now waste a fair portion of my free time…