“Spend your time reading what you care about most.” Looks like Google’s announcing a personalized feed reader for Web 2.0. Available through Google Labs. Lowering the barrier to entry – does content search, allows users to label that content. Reading list on the left, on the right is an item view. Can see subscriptions, etc.
Room is very quiet as this is being demoed. Inline player for podcasting, etc. Going off to play with it. Got a very nice round of applause at the end.
UPDATE: A ton of people will write about the services that Google Reader provides, so let me just say this – as soon as it was announced, I heard a quietly muttered ‘fuck’ from somewhere behind me to my right. Didn’t turn to see who it was – but in the crowd we’ve got here, it could’ve been one of many, many people.
I imagine the new Google Reader will contribute even more to the quiet (or not-so-quiet) feeling that Google’s doing too much, swiping not just engineers but business models away from the small start-up. Google VP of Engineering Alan Eustace’s comments that more engineers means more products – since Google’s committed to small team-size, no more than three per project – is only going to add to this feeling. Google is at risk of becoming the Microsoft of Web 2.0.
If you’re a company working on a small app, and one of the Internet behemoths is moving into your space, how do you compete with them? Attack their weaknesses – base your killer feature on something they won’t do, because it’s not in their culture to do it. If the company you’re competing with is relatively closed with their data, why not make yourself completely open? Instead of despair, it’s time for some entrepreneurship jujitsu…
