Google Reader: Out of Labs
October 3rd, 2007 | Published in Gmail (Google Mail)
You may have noticed that Google Reader recently parted ways with Google Labs. If you're not familiar with Reader, it's Google's feed aggregator. Think of it as your inbox for the web: just subscribe to the news sites, blogs, or videos you want to follow. You can read all the updates in one place -- there's no need to visit 20 different sites to get all this stuff. To see how it works, try subscribing to this blog by clicking on the "Site Feed" link in the on the right-hand side. You'll find similar links on most blogs, and many news sites too. For further explanation about why feed readers are so great, watch RSS in Plain English:
So why has Reader graduated from Google Labs? There have been a bunch of feature updates in recent months. Reader now has offline access using Google Gears, a new search tool, it's available in 10 languages, and will show you trends about your reading and subscribing habits. There's even a version of Reader for the Nintendo Wii. (But, really, we found the chemistry with Labs just wasn't there anymore.)