Google Reader Gets More Social: Now With Notes
Google has added support for Notes to Google Reader, allowing users to share notes or add notes to shared stories.
The add a note feature is located in the “Your Stuff” menu at the top of the Google Reader sidebar. Tumblr style, the feature allows users to share with friends “whatever pops into your head (for better or for worse) by typing anything into the text box at the top of the Notes page,” according to Google.
The share items with a note gives users the ability to add a note with any shared Reader item. Google explains:
If you are like me, you might want to share something in Reader, but think your friends might not “get” why you are sharing it. Use the “Share with note” button on the item toolbar to create a copy of that item with your own note attached to it. Now your friends won’t have to wonder if the B-movie about an evil floor lamp you shared was intended to be funny, sarcastic, ironic or the real motivation behind your next movie night.
Users can also add notes from the browser with a Reader Notes bookmarklet. Minor changes include the choice of new styles from the shared items page, and the Google Reader list view will now highlight when an item is being shared by a friend.
The new additions will provide additional appeal to Google Reader’s sharing feature, which has slowly grown in popularity over the last 12 months (least I see more and more friends sharing this way). The ability to have a discussion around shared feeds is still missing, but as we noted back in September is being developed by Google.
thanks to Bowrd for the tip
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Major Security Hole at Tumblr
It’s not a good day for tumbleblogging. Someone over at Hacker News just noticed that users can access an admin panel for the site by entering a simple admin URL after signing in.
Among the capabilities exposed is the ability to search for users and reset their passwords. You can also change their email addresses, view their activity logs, and change other miscellaneous settings like daily limits on post types.
According to the person who posted the exploit on Hacker News, Tumblr has already been notified of the security hole but apparently has yet to fix it. Update: They’ve just fixed it. It was a known exploit for about an hour.
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Top 2007 Education Apps: Learning 2.0
A teacher and active blogger named Larry Ferlazzo has put together his list of the top education startups of 2007.
The list was clearly put together with students in mind. And while I’m pretty sure that the average student can get to graduation with little more than Wikipedia, Delicious and perhaps an occasional stolen term paper to help them along the way, I’m glad to see someone highlighting tools to help students learn and present their work.
The list is a good start and includes startups like Footnote, Fleck, Bookr, Sketchcast and others.
Tumblr is, inexplicably, named the top learning aid. “It’s a great place for students to easily post a whole lot of their work” Ferlazzo says.
But here’s what I really want to know - If you are a student, what applications are you actually using to complete your courses? And here’s a second question - if you combined all of the time you spend on all of those sites, would it even come close to the attention you give to Facebook?
(and before you say it in the comments - yes, it is obviously a slow news day with the holidays)
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