Google Reader Rant ☀
I love Google Reader — it’s an awesome web desktop application. Unlike all of the other RSS reader software I’ve encountered, it’s heavy-duty and ably accommodates my ~1,900+ feed subscriptions. The desktop UI is a joyful experience for me — I dig that I can drive via the keyboard or mouse, and the display is rather responsive, even churning through massive chunks of links and text. The task of adding and removing subscriptions is a snappy endeavor too.
However, there exist some major annoyances that for the love of all that is saintly, besets me with vexation. Primarily because I don’t understand why they’re still issues, years later, especially, when so much attention and focus is instead directed to other trivial and superfluous features like adding another social networking link or the task of trying to transform an RSS reader into a social networking tool in lieu of polishing a capable newsreader. Seriously, some of these seem trivial to implement.
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Add a date/time picker form control so I can instantly scroll to a chronological point in the table item list view. Nothing aggravates me more than fumbling at the keyboard and refreshing / scrolling back to the top of the list OR restoring after an infrequent Chromium browser crash occasion. Or spending a day or two away from my Google Reader account and then desiring to jump to a given day or time. Or just in general, to be able to pop right into a specific date. I don’t care where they put it, as long as its visible — there’s certainly space for it in the header or sub-header.
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Shameful deficiency with mobile interface. Look, it’s 2010. A lot of us are browsing the web from our phone or still shiny iPad. I know that a lot of website proprietors are launching their own native apps, which often are just feature crippled, lesser versions of the powerful web browser that already exists on said mobile device. But, it’s not hard to oblige the smaller screen size — plentiful examples abound. For example, our Tumblr Inc. overlords have crafted an elegant mobile display that’s even customizable. Or even take the lazy route and add a meta viewport tag to confine to panel width to a reasonable value.
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An official, published API. If you shake your Google, you’ll see search result links announcing that an API is coming soon from way back in 2005, at the genesis of Google Reader. I believe the development of Google Reader is predicated on an API that existed before its initial public deployment. Some smart folks have sketched out an “unofficial” API specification, and these are now are even serving iPhone and iPad apps you can plunk down your Starbucks money and purchase. But from my study, it seems to be missing great parts of essential functionality — key amongst them, search. For all the talk of Google being the open source champion, it isn’t borne out here.
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Paltry subscription metrics reporting. I think the Reading | Subscription Trends has not changed at all since its inception. I mean, this is Google and it’s unfathomable that there’s not more substance here. What reports, you ask, would I like to view? For starters, keyword bubbling / trending — what is the “buzz” over the past (24 | 48 | 72 | 168 | 720) hours? Or on demand charting of keyword / phrase frequency. And how about identifying network relationships between subscriptions? Like how often this source links to that source, and vice versa. And give me some Amazon style recommendations — for instance, what is the most popular subscription I am missing for a given feed, out of the set of all the others who are also subscribed.
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Some serendipity. Build a Flipboard style newspaper, derived from my feeds, for me! Yes, I realize that would be a giant stretch for Google Nation.
