Google Reader Has An Improved Look And More Practical Functionality
After the recent introduction into Google Reader of Google Translation service for the automatic news translation, the web based RSS feeds reader was improved both from the interface appearance as well as the general functionality point of view.
The user interface is simplified by the removal of rounded corners, drop shadows and the old colors palette. The intention of the developers was to make the application more responsive in order to provide faster pages loading time.
The page navigation system is completely changed: previously used menus are replaced by collapsible one therefore the current navigation panes provides a separate options menu and can be minimized or maximized according to the user needs. The options menu allows to hide or show the unread counts for all panes (by default the RSS channels titles having unread items will still appear marked as bold text).
In the middle of the navigation menu, a new section corresponding to Friends Shared Items was introduced. From this area, the user is able to check the RSS news feeds shared by friends or to change the Sharing Settings.
The Discover And Search for feeds feature (accessible from the Browse For Stuff menu entry) has a new option of subscribing to feeds as bundles. The feeds bundles are sets of predefined groups of feeds organized by categories. Their advantage is represented by the fact that the user is able to subscribe to multiple feeds related to a topic (news for example) in the same time.
The recent changes in the Google Reader interface and functionality makes it a practical web based RSS reader, still user friendly and available 24 hours a day from any computer with a modern web browser and an Internet connection.
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