Larger URLs for Google Search Results

Google emphasizes web addresses displayed below the links to the search results. URLs are a lot larger and are harder to ignore. The "share" link for Google+ is also more visible, although it's still displayed when you mouse over a search result.

Here's a side-by-side comparison with the old interface:

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Google Reader Data Points

It's hard to estimate the number of Google Reader users, but here are some data points:

- the most popular feed has more than 24 million subscribers (CNN):

- the second most popular feed has 6.6 million subscribers (Engadget):

- the third most popular feed has 1.7 million subscribers (NY Times)

- Google's official blog had 100,000 subscribers in 2007 and now it has about 353,000 subscribers

- JoelOnSoftware.com had 42,000 subscribers in 2008 and now it has 148,000 subscribers.

- according to FeedBurner, 87% of the subscribers to this blog's feed use Google Reader or iGoogle. Google Reader says that this blog has 115,035 subscribers, while the total number of subscribers is 144,173. Here are the FeedBurner stats (the green lines show the number of subscribers):

Here's the Google Trends chart for [google reader]:

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No More Google Reader

Google announced that Google Reader will be discontinued on July 1st. It's a sad news, but it was inevitable. Google Reader has always been "on the chopping block" because it never got enough traction.

Everything started with a feed parser built by Chris Wetherell that turned into a feed reader, helped by Ben Darnell, Laurence Gonsalves, and Mihai Parparita. The product was launched in 2005 as a Google Labs project and it was significantly improved one year later, when the Google Reader team launched a completely new version. Over the years, Google Reader integrated with iGoogle, added social features and handled feed serving for all Google products. Back in 2007, Google Reader crawled 8 million feeds and 70% of the traffic was from Firefox users.

In 2011, Google removed Reader's social features and replaced them with a Google +1 button. It was the beginning of the end for Reader, who lost all the engineers from the original team. Google Reader is in maintenance mode ever since then.

While feeds are no longer important for many users and browsers start to drop support for reading feeds, social networks make newsfeeds popular and mobile apps like Flipboard simplify reading the news. Feeds are now a behind-the-scenes technology and full-fledged feed readers seem outdated.

"We know Reader has a devoted following who will be very sad to see it go. We're sad too. There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we're pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience," says Google's Alan Green.

It's hard to find a replacement for Google Reader, since Google Reader was the most popular feed reader and the competition couldn't keep up with it. You can still find some web-based feed readers, but none of them is as good as Google Reader. Congratulations to everyone who worked on the Reader team and thanks to all the people who subscribed to this blog in Google Reader.

Here's Google Reader's team from 2007:

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Gray Background in Google Image Search

Google Image Search uses a gray background for almost the entire page. The same background color from the header of most Google services is now used for the list of image search results. It's a light shade of gray and it looks a little better than the white background.

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Gmail's Old Mobile Sites, No Longer Available

Gmail's mobile interface has a link that used to send you to an old version of the interface, launched in 2008. I was curios to see if the "older version" link at the bottom of the page sends you to the interface that has been replaced this week.

It turns out that the older versions of the Gmail mobile site are no longer available and the "older version" link is now less useful because it sends users to the Gmail site for feature phones and for unsupported browsers.

It's also interesting to notice that the "desktop" link loads the basic HTML version, not the regular desktop interface. If you click "standard" in the basic HTML interface, Gmail sends you back to the mobile version. I've only been able to load the standard interface by using Chrome's "request desktop site" feature.

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10 Differences Between Gmail's iOS App and the Mobile Gmail Site

Now that Gmail's iOS app and the mobile Gmail site look almost the same, you may wonder which one is better. Why install the Gmail app when you can use Gmail from Safari, Chrome or any other browser? Here are 10 differences I found:

1. The native app is faster. Almost everything is faster, from transitions to scrolling and loading messages. This is especially noticeable if you have an old iPhone (I've tested the native app and the web app on an iPhone 3GS: the web app was a lot slower).

2. The native app supports push notifications. If you buy a new iPhone or iPad right now, the Gmail app is the only way to receive notifications almost instantly. The Exchange-powered Google Sync is no longer available for new devices (it still works for existing devices and Google Apps for Business/Education).

3. Gmail's iOS app opens links inside the app, while the web app opens links in a new tab. The first approach is better because it's much easier to go back to the message. You can open pages in Chrome from the Gmail app and Chrome adds a new button that sends you back to the Gmail app, replicating an Android feature.

4. You can preview photos before attaching them to a message in the native app, but this feature is not available in the web app. Photos sent using the native app are a lot more compressed: I've sent a screenshot using both apps and the native app attached a 91KB JPG file, while the mobile Gmail site attached a 239KB JPG image.

5. The native app doesn't show Google's navigation menu and doesn't include browser controls, so there's more space for displaying messages.

6. Gmail's iOS app has a different navigation interface borrowed from the YouTube and Google+ apps. It supports gestures, it's faster and it doesn't replace the current view.

7. The native app integrates with your phone contacts. That means you can open the system contact picker when composing a new message.

8. The web app shows status messages at the bottom of the window, while the native app doesn't.

9. The web app asks for permission to increase local storage to 10MB or more, while the native app doesn't.

10. Both apps let you switch between multiple accounts, but the native app has a nicer interface with profile photos and unread mail counter.

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New Mobile Gmail Interface

Gmail's mobile site now looks like the hybrid Gmail app for iPhone and iPad. There are some differences: the app has a sidebar, a different interface for changing accounts and support for push notifications.

Unlike Gmail's app for Android, the iPhone app is just a wrapper for the mobile site with a few extra features. Until now, Gmail's app for iPhone used a different interface than the mobile site. Mobile Gmail had an old interface that predated the Google-wide redesign efforts.

New interface (iPhone 4S) vs the old interface (iPhone 3GS):

Unfortunately, the new mobile site lacks the previous/next buttons, just like the iPhone app. The good news is that you can now upload photos from the mobile site if you have an iPhone or iPod. Until now, the feature was only available in the Android interface and the "native" iOS app.

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