14 DAY TRIAL // Google made a big social move with Buzz last week, though it probably could have gone a little smoother, but it's not focusing all of its efforts on just one product. It has been trying to stitch on all manners of social features to its existing products, with varying degrees of success, and now Google Reader is getting another upgrade in this department. A few months ago, Google made the first step by introducing the Popular Items feature. Now, this is getting a complete revamp and a new name, Recommended Items.
"When we launched Popular items many of you wanted to see even more personalized recommendations. With the latest round of improvements, we’ve started inserting items selected just for you inside the Recommended items section. This is great if you’ve got interests that are less mainstream. If you love Lego robots, for example, then you should start to notice more of them in your Recommended items," Google explains.
It may be replacing Popular Items but it is taking the feature to another level. Popular Items was, just like the name implies, a feature that listed the most popular stories Reader users shared. It's great for getting a pulse of what's hot but it's fairly limited in use. With Recommended Items, Google customizes the stories it exposes for each user. The company doesn't say exactly how it's going to do that, presumably it will look at your existing feeds, your friends' shared items and maybe even your search history, if it's enabled.
But it's not everything Google is introducing now. "If you’ve ever discovered a cool blog on, say, underwater basket-weaving and wanted to find more on the same topic, we’ve added a few easy ways to find related feeds. Hover over any of your subscriptions, click the menu and check out 'More like this...' to see related feeds," the announcement also reads.
This feature is also pretty self-explanatory; it enables you to find new sites and feeds, which should be similar to one you already subscribe too. In practice, it does a fairly good job and you may come across some great new blog you never knew existed but don't expect any miracles.