LawyerKM

Google has given Google Reader — the online RSS aggregator — a face lift. Incidentally, this blog entry is a reference to a different blog: The Official Google reader Blog (where does it end?).

The new interface is nice. It looks more like NewsGator’s Enterprise RSS reader that appears as a set of folders and sub-folders in Microsoft Outlook. In true Google fashion, it is cleaner and easier to navigate than its predecessor. I am a fan of Google’s products, but the old Reader was not exactly user-friendly.

The new Reader has the subscriptions down the left side of the screen and the posts appear to the right of that. You can select the “expanded view,” which shows you the whole text of the post (of course limited by what the publisher includes in the feed) or you can select the “list view,” which only shows the source, the headline, and a few words of the text of the post. Both are nice.

In the “list view,” clicking on an item in the list will expand the post to show the full content of the post. From there you can do all the familiar things: read, permalink, email the post, etc. Click again and the expanded content disappears back to the list view.

The Verdict: A much-needed and welcome improvement to the Google Reader.

Google has launched a new News Archive Search Service. As the name implies, it reaches back to provide older news stories about the search term. Here is an excerpt from the “about” page:
“ News archive search provides an easy way to search and explore historical archives. Users can search for events, people, ideas and see how they have been described over time. In addition to searching for the most relevant articles for their query, users can get an historical overview of the results by browsing an automatically created timeline. Search results include both content that is accessible to all users and content that requires a fee. Articles related to a single story within a given time period are grouped together to allow users to see a broad perspective on the events.”

RSS continues to make its way into the knowledge management field. This new product joins other players in the field, NewsGator and KnowNow. How will they set themselves apart from the built-in RSS functions in the next version of Microsoft Outlook?

Attensa: RSS meets knowledge management