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Google has recently launched a new service called Google Reader. This service, available at http://reader.google.com/ allows users to search for and easily manage RSS feeds, giving quick and easy access to the most current information and news on the topics that interest you most.

For those of you unfamiliar with RSS feeds, they are simply itemized lists in an RSS file that can be pick up and displayed on other websites and or read through the use of RSS readers. Bloggers typically us RSS to syndicate their blog posts. For example, people wishing to keep updated on what’s going on at Google may use a reader to display their RSS feed (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml) thus allowing them instant access to any new posts in their blog.

As most are aware, the popularity of blogs and RSS with it has increased and undoubtedly will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. One has to admit, instant access to up-to-date information on topics of interest has it’s appeal. The launch of Google Reader is a giant step for the average surfer. It provides an easy and powerful tool for visitors to find and manage the feeds they are interested in.

How To Use Google Reader?

For many who are less familiar with RSS, the notion of downloading an RSS reader, configuring it, etc. seems a daunting task when one can simply visit their favorite news site or use the new search feature of their favorite search engine. Understandably there are many who would rather not undertake the task of trying to understand something new when the information they are looking for is otherwise available through other means. While this is true, RSS allows a user to keep updated on the news they might not even be aware of to look for. Google knows this and thus, Google Reader was born.

To use Google Reader (and I high recommend at least giving it a quick try) you will need to take the following steps:

1. Visit the Google Reader site at http://reader.google.com/.
2. Use the search box for a topic of interest (”google” for example)
3. Look through the results for a feed of interest (I personally chose “Google News”)
4. Click “Subscribe”

That’s all there is to signing up for a feed. You can sign up for one or many of them.

At this point you’re probably wondering what you just got for this 20 seconds of effort. If we now click back to the reader homepage (add it to your Favorites for easy access in the future) you see on the left-hand side a list of the feeds you’ve subscribed to. If you choose a feed, on the right hand side you’ll see all the new posts to that feed.

This is perhaps one of the best products to come from Google in quite a while. I’ll admit that the folks at Google are seldom short of interesting and innovative ideas however from a usability and “making your life easier” standpoint the system they have developed here allows even the less technical to easily gain access to current information and keep updated effortlessly.

Who Should Use It?

Quite honestly Google Reader, due to its power and easy of use, is a helpful tool for virtually anybody who wants to keep themselves updated on information from world news to hockey scores. That said, there are definitely people who will be prone to become “power users” of this service. People who need quick access to the most current information, from reporters and researchers to business people and consultants will find this service invaluable. I know as an SEO that I’ll be using it often as keeping on top of even the smallest changes, services and search engine updates can be crucial to the success of a campaign.

Advanced Features

While all of the benefits noted above are good for the average user, they have also added some advanced features. The advanced features include:

GMail this - Never ones’ to miss an opportunity to promote their own services and drop some ads in it, they have added a link to “GMail this” to others. Of course you have to have a GMail account to use the service which means you either have to be invited by and existing GMail user of have a mobile phone and be living in the US.

Blog This! - This is definitely my favorite of the advanced features. If you’re using Blogger (again, a Google property) you can click the “Blog This!” link and it will open a window to your Blogger account and insert a link to the blog you want to reference.

What Does This Mean For SEO’s?

The launch of Google Reader stands to make blogs and RSS an even more important componant in a thorough Internet Marketing strategy. With content syndicationnow made so much easier for the average user, it’s popularity is sure to climbsignificantly. People will begin reading and using feeds more regularly and it won’t just be the more technical that can benefit from this highly effectivecommunications method.

Fellow “former VC who returned to the bright side” Tony Conrad kindly gave me a preview of Sphere, ex-Yodel Search, at the Web 2.0 conference, and re-kindly gave me access to the beta version of this new blog search engine, “that uses an advanced algorithm to discover high-quality, relevant, and timely blog posts”.

You might think: why do we need yet another blog search engine – especially after Google launched BlogSearch ? The team behind Sphere provides a pre-scripted answer, since one can bet they’ll hear that question many times over:

The first part of that question is easy: We thought we could build a much better search engine to serve the rapidly growing blogosphere.

When we started building Sphere, there were around five million blogs. Nine months later, there were more than 19 million blogs. With so many people reading, writing, and commenting on blogs, finding high-quality, relevant content has become difficult. For a variety of complex technical reasons (such as an exclusive emphasis on freshness, or an overly simplistic computation of a blogger’s authority) other blog search services deliver less-than-satisfying results. Our new, advanced algorithm rapidly sorts through all blogs to find high-quality, relevant content that matches a blog search query.

The second part of that question (you know, the Google part) is a little bit harder to explain. Our corporate therapist hasn’t led us to the answer yet, but we think it’s because we saw firsthand through Oddpost that size doesn’t always matter. We like our product and hope you will, too. And who doesn’t love an underdog anyway?

In no particular order, here are a few initial remarks I have regarding Sphere (initial because I am “waking up” in three two hours to catch a plane to NYC):

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It crawls the blog website, extracting the full text from all posts, and not the feed. Its current archive dates back January 2003 but the index can be back-filled by crawling blog archives.
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The engine seems to do a good job at extracting the actual content of pages, and not include “surroundings” like blogrolls. A search on “Jeff Clavier” only returned posts containing my name (sorry, for now only the beta users will be able to access these results). The engine actually behaves more like a feed search engine since basic search unit is the individual post.
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There is however an issue with the fact that some of these aggregator blogs that suck my feed (and others) to build vertical content sites get predominantly displayed. This proves the fact that Sphere does a good job at clustering information, but these should be removed from the index – or they should be given lower priority.
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Sphere SearchSphere seems to do a great job queries containing a few keywords. A search on “open source crm” retrieves very relevant posts, much more so than other blog search engines. Switching the sorting to ‘date’ returns results which are far less relevant, and include a bunch of spam blogs.
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I like the idea of displaying relevant blogs and news article for a particular search term. What is not clear to me is which news source are used currently (CNet ?), and how “relevant” blogs are picked up (search term included in the blog description?). For example, none of the blogs related to Venture Capital include the established VC blogs.
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Also a good idea, building a profile for each blog included in the index. The information currently displayed is not that interesting though (avg posts per week, avg number of words per post, and recent outbound links). I’d rather see recent posts – including the number of references on each post, recent inbound links, etc.
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The overall UI is actually quite clean. I sense the touch of Adaptive Path in the design (?).

We’ll have to see how well the engine scales at capacity – once the index has been backfilled and users are banging on it. But it certainly looks interesting and seems to deliver on the promise of higher relevance which is a big deal. I should point out that Om and Mike recently wrote about Sphere as well.

Congrats to Tony and team!

PS: You can leave your email address on the Sphere home page if you are interested in joining the beta program, but I understand that there are thousands of people on the waiting list. If you are at BlogOn ‘05, ask Tony for a demo.
PPS: Almost forgot - I don’t have any ties with Sphere (especially since I am an angel investor in Feedster but Tony and I share a number of good friends here and in France.

In the world of blogs, what’s old is new again.

To wit: the re-emergence of Google bombs, a snarky diversion exclusive to the Internet.

They’ve been around for several years, an inside-baseball novelty for savvy Web users and political insiders.

With the advent of free blogging sites and such hot-button issues as the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina contributing to sharply divided public opinion, hundreds of average Joes and Janes are jumping into the online fray.

Originally a prank between two friends, Google bombs have become mostly political in nature, a way to make a statement in a subversive way.

The instructions come in an e-mail, or a conspiratorial whisper from a co-worker in the next cubicle.

Go to Google.com, type the term “miserable failure” in the search field, and see what pops up when you click on the “Google Search” button.

The top result? A link to the official White House biography of President George W. Bush.

Or type in “failure” and click on “I’m Feeling Lucky” instead, and you’re taken directly to the page, where a smiling Bush greets you.

He’s been Google bombed.

Michael Moore, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jimmy Carter also have been victims of the high-tech prank, with their Web pages popping up in the top 10 results from time to time. But left-leaning bloggers have succeeded in keeping Bush in the top slot for two years and counting.

How? By exploiting a loophole in Google’s algorithm.

Search engines like Google rely heavily on how people link to other sites, said Danny Sullivan, who founded searchenginewatch.com.

If anybody with a Web site uses a specific phrase like “miserable failure” to link to a certain Web page, search engines like Google and Yahoo! will point users to that page.

“If enough people are doing that, it can cause search engines to think that’s what the page must be about,” he said.

Some liken Google bombs to political activism, while others see it as harmless (and funny) cybergraffiti.

Clifford Tatum, a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington, published a study of Google bombs on First Monday, a peer-reviewed Internet journal.

The study concluded that the Bush Google bombs qualify as symbolic, if not legitimate, social movement, by expressing widespread dissatisfaction with his performance.

Jeff Fulmer, a Pennsylvania writer who has a “worst president ever” Google bomb linked to Bush’s biography page on his blog - blogdayafternoon.com - thinks it should be taken with a grain of salt.

“Google bombs offer a chance to game the system while they provide the smug satisfaction one feels when they unleash a zinger,” he said. “This can hardly be classified as genuine political activism. I’m just tossing spitballs from the back of the room.”

Left-leaning bloggers like Fulmer have taken to Google bombing with zeal. Right-leaning bloggers say that’s no coincidence.

“Our side doesn’t do stuff like this,” said John Hinderaker, whose powerlineblog.com is one of the most popular conservative blogs.

Hinderaker, a Minneapolis lawyer, said he had never heard of Google bombing, much less participated in it.

“These liberals have way too much time on their hands,” he said.