[confusedreader]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't really understand the huge community backlash to the Reader rework. I spend hours in reader every day, and it wasn't until they added in G+ that it actually became easy to share.The addition made it so I could share within a community I was already involved in rather then a few people in some disconnected Reader community. From my perspective they actually removed the useless and unnecessary functions that made the old reader impossible to use to actually share content. I see it as a good first step, and when G+ actually has a solid API to build upon, they can evolve Reader to use it.

Also, rabble rabble rabble too much white space rabble rabble rabble. I tried some of the community created userscripts to see if the "UI improvements" people were making actually helped and in the large part they don't as the people writing them don't seem to understand UI design.

[Jamiecon]

Normally I'm the person who makes this type of comment. I'm not a fan of resistance to change, or contrariness in general - especially the particularly annoying and overly dramatic Internet Blogger brands.

However for me the crucial missing feature is being able to view and comment on your friends' shared items within Reader.

I'm completely OK with Google requiring me to have a Google+ account, and see the sense in the merging of the two 'social networks'. I'm also fine with my shares appearing on Google+. I'm happy to configure a Circle to handle my shares.

But there's no way for me to read the items that my friends who are Google Reader users have shared _within_ Reader, as either individual or merged RSS feeds. This is something I used to be able to do, and now I can't - with no replacement.

That's why the backlash is justified in this case.

PS - Google you could make me happy just by having a 'Friends shared items' menu item which aggregates Google+ shares from Reader. That's all it would take.

I'll have fond memories of pressing 'Shift + S', C, and typing a message to a small group of mates for a while though. Those were the days!

[ImprovedSilence]

You, you just put my thoughts and frustrations into words, thank you. I'm also usually very open to change and what have you, but I despise the new reader. Exactly because I like to be in reader, and see what my friends posted from reader. I don't want it mixed with the rest of my social life, I don't want it mixed with FB like status updates, I just want to see what people are sharing in Reader. It's like I had my own "community" in reader, a small but special subset of people really in the "know". Yeahyeah, that's a circle, I know, but I went to reader to read what they shared, then I read my own, and shared. The 'dialog' was more circular, if that makes any sense. That, and my Reader slants heavily on the 'images' and artsy side of things, it was almost like a micro tumblr that only friends saw, but unlike tumblr, it's not recycled stuff, we are all pulling from different places, I followed a guy from finance, a dude that loved astronomy, and chick in advertising, a guy in tech, a girl into silly comics, and it was all right there, im my reader. It was perfect.

[gchucky]

I wish I could upvote you even more - this is _exactly_ my criticism with the new Reader. The experience of sharing links has essentially split into two parts: I can share items with my friends from Reader to G+, but if I want to see anything my friends have shared (or if they want to see my posts), we have to go to G+. It's not cohesive anymore.

If they just added a place where you could view other people's posts in Reader, that'd be perfect. Let it pull from a Circle or something and that's it.

[joebadmo]

I agree that the backlash is partly just aversion to change, and partly the fact that we're in a usability canyon because of the transition, but that the integration with the G+ sharing model means a better, more granular future for sharing, which is good.

I wrote a whole post defending the change here: http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/12261287667/in-defense-of-the...

Regarding the visual design, I hope they'll take cues from the Gmail redesign, which hit a really great balance between clean whitespace-full minimalism and density configurability.

[rkudeshi]

How big is your display? I'm on a 13" MBP (1280x800) and there's significantly less space allocated to reading now, which is my greatest frustration.

[CountHackulus]

I agree, it's essentially unusable on my netbook now.

[confusedreader]

24in Monitor. I could see how it might not scale down well, maybe they need to introduce the UI scaling features that Gmail has that might help with a lot of peoples issues. The userscripts I tried basically just removed a lot of margins and padding around content, so maybe those might suit you on a small display?

[rkudeshi]

If I remember correctly, Google engineers are given the choice of one 30" monitor or a two 24" monitors, which is what the new Google Reader was presumably built on and perhaps optimized for.

However, given the fact that laptops dominate computer sales nowadays, I'm downright amazed they didn't test it further on small screens.

[sixtofour]

If you listen very carefully, you can almost hear "We realize that Google Reader is not for everyone ..."

[nl]

If I remember correctly, Google engineers are given the choice of one 30" monitor or a two 24" monitors, which is what the new Google Reader was presumably built on and perhaps optimized for.

They also get a laptop (most choose a 15" MBP). I seriously doubt non one saw it on a smaller screen.

[wyclif]

He's right. It definitely doesn't scale down well to small monitors and 13".

[DiabloD3]

The lack of padding is what makes it really bad. Its now entirely too cluttered. I quit using Google Reader, and I'm trying NewsBlur although its far from perfect, its a clear step up.

[conesus]

What could be improved about NewsBlur?

[AdamGibbins]

#1 thing stopping me from switching is the lack of stable reliable Android app with syncing and offline support.

[jedbrown]

I want a share-to-G+ that does not involve a public +1. And I want G+ to manage "unread" status so that I don't see the same things over and over. And keybindings in G+.

The social features of Reader were not great, but we had an active group of about 30 people who shared research papers. Quite a number of new collaborations and papers were born in Reader comment threads. I see between 100 and 200 items each day, perhaps 20-30 of which are scientific papers shared by colleagues. G+ is generally not very utilitarian and it's clearly worthless for this use case.

[wyclif]

I want a share-to-G+ that does not involve a public +1.

You can do that. Use "Share" in the upper right of the OneGoogle bar.

[CountHackulus]

This works, but then you have to use the mouse, and when you're done sharing, context isn't returned to what it used to be, so keyboard shorcuts (n, shift+n, j, k, l, etc...) don't work until you click on a story to focus.

Also, I can't hit l to like (maybe p to plus now?) or shift+s to share.

You can change my sharing options, you can change the look and feel. But messing with my keyboard shortcuts is tantamount to murder.

[rexf]

Along the same lines, you can no longer tell instantly if an item is shared (via the bottom of the content).

Before, sharing an item would change the text to "Shared" so that you could both 1.) see that it was shared and 2.) click again to undo the Share. Now, you would have to go to G+ to check.

[jedbrown]

Oh, thanks.

[watty]

Agreed, I like the new design and LOVE the new gmail design. I don't see anything to complain about once they add whitespace customization (like gmail).

[seigenblues]

I notice your account is ten minutes old. Is this an astroturf? A PR troll? ...Can you really tell me it got easier to share now that it's G+ and not Reader?

One man's "community [they were] already involved in" is another man's "disconnected community." Speak for yourself

I had a carefully cultivated list of cranks, miscreants, and technologic misanthropes who found some very interesting content and had some very interesting discussions, largely by way of the "note in reader" bookmarklet.

That whole community vanished for me overnight, without even a head nod for how to get it back, and I'm a bit upset about it. Publicly "+1"-ing something isn't even a first order approximation.

[confusedreader]

I generally only lurk and don't really comment unless there is something that really annoys me. Not a PR troll, just a Reader user that isn't picking up a pitchfork and joining the angry mobs over something I've wanted changed since G+ was released.

I can see how removing the social features upsets readers, but they mentioned them before they were going to do it and allow you to move your data out if it no longer suits you. To me, using the notes for commenting always felt off, really never felt like a real conversation. I like the ability to share something to my specific circles and then discuss it there, you don't have to only click that little +1 button under the post if you don't want it public.

This seems to be the way that Google works on things. Huge changes, then iterate until it is usable again. They knew they were going to burn users, in this case very loyal users, to make a better product that aligns with their overall goals. I assume they will bring better social integration in the future, though when that will be, who knows.

[seigenblues]

that's fine, but your "only comment unless something really annoys you" is disingenuous -- this is the only thing that has annoyed you enough to comment on.

I'm sorry if my reaction seemed a little strong; you mentioned not being able to understand the sentiments you were hearing. I am suggesting that as my tiny online community vanished overnight, perhaps you could empathize with that and extend that to the other incomprehensible sentiments you were hearing.

I, for one, have resisted any sort of move towards pitchforks or torches or even (gasp) public condemnation, because I acknowledge that this is, indeed, how google operates, and also that as a user of a "free" service, that this is its actual cost. And i do still hope that the aspects of Reader that fostered such a good community can be rediscovered in G+; it's bugged me since G+ launched that the integration with things like Reader was poor.

And it may yet improve along those lines! -- Doesn't make me any less sad about the loss of my community, though...

(Likewise, you might not have used "Notes", but they could be both public or private, serving as both a vehicle for discussion or a bookmark-service for research, archiving, etc, a la pinboard or delicious. Again -- maybe not a feature that you used, but one that people who did use now need to replace.)

[anigbrowl]

I notice your account is ten minutes old. Is this an astroturf? A PR troll?

Don't be rude. Dissing people for having newish accounts breaks the guidelines.

...Can you really tell me it got easier to share now that it's G+ and not Reader?

Yes. It works fine for a lot of people, and observing this does not invalidate your complaints.

[seigenblues]

Very well. I thought it was suspicious and called it out as such, but I thought i had done it in a reasonable way. My mistake. He's since replied to me and i believe i've replied to him in (what i hope is) a civil manner below.

Yes. It works fine for a lot of people, and observing this does not invalidate your complaints.

Can you tell me about this? Previously, i had one-click share within Reader, and two click sharing from the web via a bookmarklet. I am genuinely curious about how this got easier with the new Reader.

What's your workflow now to share an article with a carefully curated group of friends?