Bill Burcham’s memeRocket

In a recent post I lamented a couple usability problems with the Google Reader subscription process. I cited two problem areas. First, when you subscribe to a new feed, you’re forced to choose the target aggregator (Google Homepage vs. Google Reader) every single time. Second, there is no streamlined way to tag the newly added feed. Well both problems are pretty much history now. Here’s the scoop…

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Earlier this month I introduced Gordita — a little bookmarklet generator. The generated bookmarklet lets you del.icio.us tag not only the current web page, but more specifically the current item when you’re in Google Reader. Commenter Justin Hamilton asked for an enhancement: rather than invoke the del.icio.us tagging interface directly, he wanted the bookmarklet to tickle Pukka so that he could target the entry to a specific del.icio.us account (he has more than one).

Well ask and ye shall receive. Drag^[1] (the following hyperlink…) Pukkadita to your bookmark toolbar and then click it from any page. Like the vanilla Pukka bookmarklet, this one uses the current page title, location (URL) and selection (if any) to initialize the fields of a new del.icio.us entry via Pukka. Like Gordita, though, this one is aware of Google Reader’s unique DOM structure so if you’re on the Google Reader page you get a reference to the current item (not the page itself).

Pukka enhancing del.icio.us tagging on your Mac, tweaked by Pukkadita to integrate seamlessly with Google Reader. Little tools working together to keep you focused. I like that!

[1] If you’re reading this in Google Reader, the Pukkadita bookmarklet (hyperlink) above has been neutered. It won’t work. To get a working one, navigate to the article on memerocket.com and drag your Pukkadita from there.

I have Firefox on the PowerBook configured to subscribe to “live (RSS) feeds” using Google Reader. This tight integration is nice, but there are two things that could be streamlined.

1. When I click a subscription link, rather than have the subscription go directly to Google Reader, I’m presented with an intermediate page that asks me my preferred destination: Google Homepage vs. Google Reader. Every… Single…Time
2. After selecting “add to Google Reader” at that screen, I’m taken to the subscription in Google reader (good!) but there is no effecient way to tag the new feed. The first thing I always want to do is tag that new feed and I can’t do it. Google Reader taunts me with the per-item “Edit tags:” control — but for some impenetrable reason, a tag applied that way pertains only to a single item — not the feed itself. Never mind that you can never navigate back to an item w/ this sort of fine-grained tag.

In order to tag the newly added feed, my approach is to navigate to the “Manage subscriptions…” page; command-f (find) the feed of interest; click the “Change folders…” drop-down and apply my tags. Sheesh. There has to be a better way.