There’s been a lot of talk about the changes that have happened to Google Reader as it’s been integrated with G+, a…

There’s been a lot of talk about the changes that have happened to Google Reader as it’s been integrated with G+, a lot of it negative. I’d just like to point out that – hilariously, due to a previous kick in the teeth from Google – this has actually been a net Social gain for me.

You see, I signed up for reader back when I had a “google account” under mike@jurney.org. Some time after that, I made jurney.org into an Apps domain. Reader was unstaffed for a comfortable window on either side of this change, so I didn’t see any difference at the time. I’d been building up a group of people to follow, and slowly gathering followers, and was starting to see the potential in Reader’s social model when… Reader was converted to use the (at that time) new accounts system. As a side-effect, all sharing information – All followers, all of those you followed – was lost. All I was able to export was the list of my subscriptions.

I was so annoyed at having lost the small social map that I’d been building that I just couldn’t be bothered to chase everyone down and re-follow them. Reader became a simple RSS aggregator, and that’s how I’ve used it until now. As my friends have been more-or-less forced to start sharing Reader items on G+ though, I’ve discovered tons of fun, or interesting, or thought-provoking feeds that I’d never previously heard of.

Essentially, G+ having shattered the rich, healthy social ecosystem of Reader sharing has had at least one tiny positive side-effect: I found a bunch of new stuff that I probably never would have otherwise found.

I’m not willing to say that that small benefit is worth the cost, as I feel like I’m probably a tiny slice of the Reader community, which is itself a tiny slice of the Google community, which is itself a tiny slice of the Internet community. But honesty demands that I point out that the Reader->G+ change has had a Social benefit for, if nobody else, me.