Customizing Your Reader “Playlist”

Google recently launched within their Google Labs a new feature, “Google Reader Play.” Have you checked it out? I briefly tried it out and boy is it different from the standard Google Reader. The feature is intended to be a more visual or entertainment browser – giving a new and interesting way to browse stuff.

It is based with a black backdrop and comes with some popular features such as “like” and “share.” Although it looks pretty neat and I always like exploring new concepts – I’m not sure if this fits my browsing tastes. Now of course this will depend on how you enjoy learning as an individual, perhaps you are more auditory than visual etc.

At First Glance
A lot of what is being served to me appears as jokes or comedic… not too much meaty news and information.

There tends to be more viewing of photos/images as opposed to reading. But aside from the random images (it was pretty neat to see IKEA furniture displays in a subway of Paris) there wasn’t much substance. Maybe it was just the images I happened to be served?

Taking this into account, I didn’t see a way or at least an easy way [if hidden] to dislike what appeared. I guess I grew accustomed to seeing likes/thumps up next to dislikes/thumps down. But this didn’t really matter too much when on the slideshow option as the slides just came so fast you didn’t have much time to digest what you saw/read.

Conclusion
As always, Google reveals a range of different tools that are meant to be helpful for an assortment of people. I definitely recommend checking out Google Reader Play. However, I do think this browsing method will be an acquired taste as it works outside of the norm.