Google's Hidden Social Network

No, not Orkut. Google Reader.

I've written about Google Reader before.

Simply put, it's a Blog Reader - built right into your browser.

When you're on blog or web page that has an RSS feed (which all sites really should have now) you can 'subscribe' to the feed, typically by looking for the orange broadcast logo or the words 'rss' and be notified in Google Reader when there's something new.

You can even 'Share' the posts you like the most by clicking on a 'share' link and have them show up in your very own Shared Items Page. Here's mine. There's also an RSS feed for that page (a feed of feeds) and I've also put the list of shared items on the right side of my blog, over there ->>>

What I discovered this past week has taken it to the next level.

Google Reader has 'tags' - where you can label each of the feeds you read into different categories for better organization. Nothing mind-blowing, everybody has tags.

But what you can also do is "share" any of the tags, which in turn will share the blogs in those tags. Simply go to Settings > Tags in Google Reader and enable one of your tags for public viewing.

Here's all the "Music" blogs I'm subscribed to. There's (of course) a Feed, too. It will update automatically whenever one of those Music blogs I'm subscribed to adds a new post.

I'm sure I'm missing some good ones so let me know which ones I should add, or better yet, share your Music tagged blogs and I can subscribe to that feed, in turn re-share your feed...get it?

Now anyone can organize a list of stuff they read online and share it with the world. Whether you're into Music, Politics, Environment, Tech, Cooking, Shopping, Business or whatever category you'd like to make up, you can become a zealot of information, and if people trust you, they can subscribe to the stuff you care about, and then in turn share that with other people, and the wheel turns...

I think this could be the continuation of a connected, conscious web...

I'm sure this is what others like del.icio.us has been doing for years, but something about Google Reader feels more elegant, useful and, well, goooogly.