Sunday, April 12, 2009

Google Reader share broken? Check your Friends list

Google has been flailing about with their Profile / Social graph strategy.

Recently they refactored Gmail/Google Contacts, and created a new classification of contacts: "Friends", "Family" and "Coworkers". The result broke some of my Google Reader shared feeds.

More details here:
Gordon's Notes: Google's confusing social graph strategy: Google reader friends via Google Chat

... Jacob R is seeing my shares, we have a [Google] chat relationship, but I'm not seeing his shares. I added his share stream as a distinct feed for now. ... turns out when Google switched to their even more befuddled social strategy I wasn't in Jacob's "Friends" group, so his sharing feed went away. He added me in and it reappeared....

...Google has things set up so you do the feed stream share thingie with ONE of (not both of)
  • Your chat contacts
  • "Friends" as defined by Gmail - "Friends, Family, and Coworkers are groups to help you organize your contacts. You can move contacts in and out of these groups at any time. Various Google products let you share information with people in these groups.
    In addition, you can create a Google profile to help people in these groups keep in touch with you. They will be able to easily find your profile from various Google products."
In both cases of course the Chat contact or Gmail Friend must have as an email address the Gmail address associated with their Google Reader shares....
Just imagine how this hairball plays out when you introduce synchronization of Google Contacts with external contact stores.

It's a Googlicious screw-up.

Now waiting for version 3 ...

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