Of all the Web 2.0 and social media tools I’ve adopted over the last year or so, the one that has changed the way I function on the internet most significantly would have to be Google Reader. I’ve always collected RSS feeds, and as a podcaster, they’re central to my bread and butter. Google Reader however, more than any other tool, has made me more productive in my media consumption than anything else I’ve adopted (not to mention afforded me all the extra hours in the day now devoted to twittering and Facebooking).

I love information, I love discovering new high-value sources […] Whether you’re someone concerned about information overload or, like me, you just want more streams of pure gold coming into your inbox - recommendation engines are going to be big in the fast-approaching future. They don’t account for our need to expand our tastes, but they do have huge potential in making our process of discovering more content and sources that we already like - and what’s just a touch different - far more powerful.

It was the greatest of ironies that Google Reader, an RSS reader from the leading search company, had no search box. They added one today, allowing you to search your subscriptions and shared items from others. Other tweaks include the ability to hide the side navigation ala Bloglines, and unread counts that go all the way up to 1,000 (umm…why bother with the restriction at all - it’s plain annoying for those of us who consume large volumes of info). They’ve also made the forward and back buttons work like you’d expect, despite the heavy use of javascript.