The new Google Reader

Last week, Google launched a new version of the Google Reader. For a long time, NetNewsWire was my RSS reader of choice. Unfortunately, my computer environment goes beyond MacOS X, so I wanted something online. I decided to give Google Reader a try for a few weeks and really liked it. Some of the flaws have been fixed in the update of last week. Here's a short list what sold me on Google Reader:

1. It's a web application, accesible from different hardware and operating systems.
   
2. Add clips to your website. The little left side pane 'Interesting Bits I read' is automatically generated from articles I read in Google Reader. All I have to do is label a particular article with a tag and it automatically shows up on the left side of my blog. Very nice.
   
3. Automatic feed discovery: just type in the URl and Google Reader will explore the site for available feeds
4. Tags: allow you organize feeds, as well as individual articles
5. Easy reading: (ajax-style) scrolling through your articles; keyboard shortcuts; read per tag; read starred articles
   

Other features (such as list view, a la Gmail; or the email button) are nice additional features. I haven't used them very much.