New Google Reader Arrogantly Finds Its Way

As reported in my last post, Google was up to overhaul its RSS-feed aggregator, and there were many unhappy readers out there, some of them leading to protests. Much to the dismay of RSS fans, the changes were rolled out last night, and reported on the Official Google Reader blog.

Though I have been impatiently waiting for the cross-app new look of Google Plus, I am not very happy with what has been done. It looks neat and clean undoubtedly, but there are many disturbing changes:

• I don't like the left panel, and definitely not the custom scrollbar on the left at all. Also, the small arrow to hide the left panel has vanished. You will have to use the keyboard shortcut 'f', which, unfortunately, does not appear in the list of keyboard shortcuts that comes up when you press '?'
• Items do not have any option to change the spacing between them, unlike the dense theme in Gmail and cozy and compact density settings in Google Docs.
• The Super Full Feed extension buttons, including the Super settings button, are still the old ones and misaligned badly.
• Shared items and commenting is the feature missed by millions and the most protested against. I am no exception.
• The "Keep as unread" option has been brutally removed, and the disposal is not even acknowledged. This used to come in very handy if I find a long feed interesting and could not complete it and wanted to read it later, maybe on a different computer.

The thing that irked me the most was not one of these, but the arrogant fashion with which Google announced this on the official blog post, quoting which: "If you decide to stay, then please do send us your feedback..." implying they could care less. Even the sweetener added at the end "Regardless where you go, we want to make sure you can take your data with you." smells of Google's give-a-damn attitude.



The only plus part to these changes is that you can now +1 a post that will appear on your Google Plus stream. Google is trying to develop a social network by stripping off other products of their social capabilities. With the inclusion of GTalk in Google Plus, I am half afraid GMail may see GTalk going out of its layout very soon.

The new interface is okay, people would get used to it in a couple of days or so, but this attitude may prove harmful in the long run. Not many people will quit using Google or even Google Reader, (the pain of changing and getting used to a new feed reader is more than getting used to a new UI and live with the few changes), but the overall experience creates a bitterness and brings about a loss of trust in Google. I think I was right when I deplored that Google Reader was the most neglected child; I may add to it that Google Reader readers, if you will, are the least cared for.

Update: The "keep unread" option as I mentioned as the last point in my list above has come back again. Another useful thing that has gone is the drop down list of folders and tags that doubled up as an input text box and you could type in your folder name. Now you have to choose from the dropdown using the mouse.