More thoughts on why Google Reader works well for social media

I was thinking about what advantages Google Reader has over all the other aggregators, such as Flock or Yoonoo, or FriendFeed. The obvious one is that you have more control over what you want to see. For example, I not only can see Facebook friends’ status updates, but also their posted items. I also have my Twitter in three feeds: me+friends, replies to me, and direct messages. This functionality is a bit like Twitter client functionality, e.g. Tweetdeck where you can put replies and DMs into separate columns.

However, there is one great advantage to the Google Reader method: searching stuff. If you got a DM from someone in Twitter you could simply search their name or a word you remembered, etc. and find that message–faster–than if you had to go the website and search it.

Going back to the point of controlling things: Flickr–I put my Recent Activity feed in there, so that I can read what comments I get without having to login to Flickr, or without having to get email from FLickr which then crowds my inbox.

Of course, you cannot comment or reply to people very fast, but on the other hand, if you see a Tweet or facebook status you want to reply to, you can just open that link from within Google Reader into another tab on your browser, do your replying, and then close it…that way you aren’t wasting a bunch of tabs and getting cluttered up in that regard.

There are some other miscellaneous points I think are worth mentioning:
1. if you like scanning text fast, Google Reader is great. I find it easier to skim than the more graphical interfaces on websites. While some people like having video and pictures embedded in Facebook notes, i sometimes prefer just seeing the text, and then deciding for myself if i want to open the link and see the videos. Skimming is a good way to see what’s up there without really wasting a lot of time on Facebook. This way you don’t have to switch pages in Facebook, especially here in China where sometimes Facebook is very slow. You can just switch right away between status updates and posted notes, refreshing whenever you want.
2. Sharing on Google Reader–since you’ve got a motherlode of RSS feeds on Google Reader, and since you used TwitterFeed to get your Google shared items to get to your Twitter (which is synced with Facebook, for me), you can just read stuff and share it really fast. I don’t have to bother with “Twittaht” or other sharing chiclets that sometimes take time to load properly, i can just press share and then forget it fast, letting Twitterfeed send that information every half hour to my Twitter. In the meantime I have already moved onto reading something else.
3. Google integration. I can go from information i have in my reader to my email and my documents very fast. and did i mention…SEARCHING!
4. How you configure your browser matters too. If you have Share on Facebook, TwitThis and Add to Google Reader, that will help quite a bit, since you will be able to, if you so wish, to go from something inside Reader (eg a photo from Twitter or Flickr or some Amazon wishlist from Friend Feed) to opening up the original webpage and then being able to Share on FB as a note. Of course to share on Twitter or Facebook as status you just have to press share in Reader. But having a browser set up right means that you have more options at your fingertips.

But again, I think the most impt thing is that Google Reader is where you can match the maximum number of information “inputs” with your desired outputs. I am sure that with Yahoo pipes and some other creative meddling you can make this even smoother.