Just this morning I was telling an acquaintance that part of La Vide Bloga is that you've got to remain on high alert at all times, lest a company or topic that you cover deliver unexpected products or news. Google, especially. A long-awaited Google-branded RSS reader is out, and it's called Google Reader. Using an Ajax-scrubbed tagging interface with sliding panels and a space-age look (this must be how the HAL9000 read its feeds), Google Reader is a pleasure to look at. Early testing reveals problems, notably an upsettingly slow delivery of click results and unresolved complications importing OPML files from other newsreaders. the interactive tour doesn't work. Search is predictably center stage, and Google seems to provide as-good-or-better results than Bloglines in early testing, though it fails to separate blog matches from entry matches.

As Download Squad notes, Google Reader is a stand-alone Web service, not integrated into Gmail as many observers expected. (Google fueled those expectations by toying with rudimentary Reader features in selected Gmail accounts.) However, Gmail is nicely tied into Reader via a drop-down menu. More important, Blogger is tied in, launching a pop-up entry-writing window for Blogger account-holders. I don't quite like certain details of that feature, but I will save that discussion for the full review.

More later. Much more. This is important.