Share anything. Anytime. Anywhere.

5/05/2008 04:59:00 PM

Posted by Jenna Bilotta, User Experience Designer

Have you ever wanted to share something that you were reading, but you didn't want to go through the hassle of subscribing to a whole feed for a single interesting article? And what about sharing content from sites with no feeds? There you are, reading along, and you think to yourself, "If only everything on the web had a 'Share' button like in Google Reader!"

As it turns out, there's all sorts of information "out there" just waiting to be streamed, shared and otherwise consumed by you and your friends. Now you can finally show all of your Reader friends that awesome talking cat video you found, your favorite grilled trout recipe, or reviews of the best brunch place in your neighborhood -- all without a subscription.

Here are a few new ways you can add and share interesting things in Reader:

Share anything with a bookmarklet - Just drag this link from the Notes page up to your browser's bookmark bar and click, click, click your way to easy, no-subscription sharing in Reader. You can share any content from any web page, even if the site doesn't have a feed. For even more control over what gets shared, select some text from the page before clicking the "Note in Reader" bookmarklet and your selection will appear as the item's body. There's also a space for you to add an editorial note when you need to let your friends know why you are sharing something. You can always uncheck "Add to shared items" if you want to add something to Reader without also adding it to your shared items.

Share items with a note - If you are like me, you might want to share something in Reader, but think your friends might not "get" why you are sharing it. Use the "Share with note" button on the item toolbar to create a copy of that item with your own note attached to it. Now your friends won't have to wonder if the B-movie about an evil floor lamp you shared was intended to be funny, sarcastic, ironic or the real motivation behind your next movie night.

Add a note - Do you ever get the urge to just share a thought with your friends without attaching it to any particular item? Now, you can let your friends know whatever pops into your head (for better or for worse) by typing anything into the text box at the top of the Notes page.

We have also added a few other small features to make your sharing even more awesome! Add a little personality to your public shared items page by choosing from three new styles from your shared items page.

Finally, we've changed the list view to highlight when an item is being shared by a friend, as opposed to through your normal subscriptions.

I hope you like these new sharing features as much as I do, because I'm always on the lookout for even more ways to share cool things with my friends! As always, much of our feature development is in response to feedback that we get in our discussion group, and a number of other sources -- so please keep it coming!