As Google Reader, the most popular online RSS feed reader, has gained significant functionality over the last year, including new gestures for content and the ability to share items with social networks, the mobile version of the site has lagged somewhat behind. Today, Google, on what has obviously been a big day of news for the Mountain View company, updated the mobile version to be more in line with the Web content. I have been using the new interface for a few weeks, since mid-December, and it is much improved.

Limited to what is clearly a much smaller screen than the rapidly expanding desktops most of us are used to, Google Reader Mobile is trying to accomplish more tasks in a lot less space. Added today include the option to "like" items, tag them and sort feeds from oldest or newest. Previously, the mobile version had two major items: "Mark All as Read" or the simple "Refresh".


The upgrade makes Google Reader mobile much more of an option to get feed items while using any smartphone, but there is still room to grow before it reaches parity with the desktop equivalent. For example, the mobile version is missing the "Sort by Magic" functionality introduced this October, letting you find the best feeds just for you. I've been using my6sense (a company I advise with Paladin) for this functionality, while relying on Google Reader Mobile to view all feeds in total.

Noticeable changes with the new mobile UI include the main header's change, where you can easily get access to Gmail or Calendar with a single click , and larger fonts, in general, to make clicking the right buttons with your small fingers on these small displays even easier.

Also added today, on the Web side, is Reader's move toward "recommended sources", which you can find in the "Explore" section of Reader, under "People you follow" and above "Subscriptions". It's a good way to find new feeds that could be a match for you.

The team summarizes the new features in a blog post on their Web site issued this afternoon.

Disclosure: my6sense, an assumed competitor to Google Reader mobile, is a client of Paladin Advisors Group, where I am Managing Editor of New Media. My comments on the company's product are always independent, and do not pass their way in advance.

Video from a quick 1-1 interview with Intruders.tv I got the opportunity to do at LeWeb 2009 in Paris, focused on people and companies that tech geeks should know. Also discussed, as usual, the importance of a blog, realtime and social media.

With so many social networks gaining traction, the potential for communities to be split and conversations diversified is a known issue. Aiming to solve the problem and ensure users could update once and populate anywhere, Sean McCullough, along with co-founder Adam Duffy, created Ping.fm, which lets you update 50 social networks at once.

Today, Seesmic, the well-known microblogging client, which to date has focused on Twitter and Facebook, acquired the service, extending the product's reach. In combination with Seesmic's recent inroads to a native Windows client and an Android application, alongside their Web interface and AIR application, the service looks to become ubiquitous, updating any site from anywhere.

In today's announcement, Seesmic CEO Loic LeMeur said that the company's vision recognizes that friends "are not all in one social network, but we want to help you stay in touch with them anytime and from any device." Ping.fm has a reported half a million active users, who post approximately 200,000 updates daily. These updates will contribute to Seesmic's stated goal of one million updates a day in 2010.

At LeWeb, in the Twitter Apps panel I moderated (video here), Sean McCullough of Ping.fm and Marco Kaiser of Seesmic both participated.

Seesmic's array of applications, including BlackBerry, will all soon have what Loic termed "advanced Ping.fm integration very shortly", adding that users could update not just with Seesmic's apps, but also through Ping.fm's e-mail, SMS and chat gateways.

To date, Seesmic has been seen as direct competition to the other major column-based Twitter client, TweetDeck. But while TweetDeck has taken a slower approach to new interfaces, holding on to its AIR installs and iPhone application, Seesmic looks like it is branching ahead, serving more screens and now, more networks.

Twitter's pedigree is getting increasingly rich at the expense of Google and other Silicon Valley tech titans. With the holidays behind us, the microblogging powerhouse is starting the new year with more new faces at its San Francisco headquarters. Among them is Bakari Brock, most recently an in house lawyer for YouTube and Google focused on music, video and syndication.

Brock, whose LinkedIn profile shows him as corporate counsel at Google, starting in 2007, was heavily quoted in late 2008 when the video service introduced e-commerce capabilities enabling customers to purchase from partners including iTunes and Amazon, and his comments were included in publications such as the New York Times and GigaOM site NewTeeVee.


Formerly of Google, Brock Joining Twitter
Brock's LinkedIn biography states a specialty focusing "on negotiation and drafting of music, video and software licenses; and counseling on copyright, ecommerce, and general policy issues." As Twitter grows increasingly visible, and looks to embark on a revenue-generating advertising model which we have been told we will all "love", somebody has got to make sure the contracts and licenses are good to go. Brock was added to the Twitter Team list on Sunday, which likely means he starts work Monday.

Prior to his work at YouTube and Google, Brock was previously an attorney at Kilpatrick Stockton, LLP and he attended Harvard Law School.

Brock's hire is among the most notable as part of a hiring boom at Twitter that sees ten new employees start work on January 4, 2010. The others:

Paul Soals (formerly of Bebo), Ed Ceaser (formerly of TiVo), Dmitriy Ryaboy (formerly of Cloudera), Nancy Broden (formerly of Qik), Tony Wang (also from Google), John Sirois (from VMware), Jinen Kamdar (a second Ning escapee) and Jane Huang.

These new hires are on top of the team gained in the Mixer Labs acquisition announced on December 23rd.

OF NOTE: Twitter was premature in adding some of these people. One hire previously included said their start date was 1/11, and as a courtesy, they have been removed.

We previously noted Twitter's hire of Utkarsh Srivastava from Yahoo! and Josh Elman of Facebook in the fall.