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Welcome back to Feed Reader Friday everybody. Each week we are bringing you a new feed reader which is compatible with your BlackBerry. You will want to check out our previous reviews for an in depth look at each of the RSS readers available. We encourage you to test each reader and pick the one you like most.

The feed reader we will be looking into this week is the Google Mobile Reader. This is a web based RSS reading application which requires you to have a Google account set up prior to usage. To utilize the Google Mobile RSS reader simply navigate to the following URL using your BlackBerry mobile browser: http://www.google.com/reader/m .

Signing up for a Google account

To sign up for a Google account, simply navigate to Google’s homepage and click the login link in the top right corner of your screen. You will be taken to the sign in page. On the right side of your screen you will see the login area, immediately below this is a link which reads “Create an account now”.

Click the link and follow all of the instructions to create a new Google account, which will then be used to configure your feed preferences for the Google Mobile RSS reader.

First impressions of the Google Mobile RSS reader

When using the Google Mobile RSS reader you will have to set up your preferences through the online control panel. To do this, navigate to www.google.com/reader/m on your PC and sign in using the login and password you created when setting up your account.

Here you will decide if you want 5, 10 or 20 news items presented on each page when browsing feeds. Clicking over to the Google Reader will allow you to choose the news feeds you would like to track.

The interface for adding new news feeds it straight forward and easy to navigate. I was able to add the BBGeeks feed with a few simple clicks. Google also has a set of preselected feed bundles available to you in the event that you are new to the world of RSS, or just looking for a quick list of feeds in a certain genre.

My selected feeds were available immediately after clicking the subscribe button. Overall, the sign up, setup and selection of feeds was easy. In my opinion, having an online dashboard is a great time saver when it comes to updating a feeds list, whether adding new news feeds or removing them. With an online dashboard you can fly through the entire process, leaving only the reading of news to be done on your BlackBerry.

Features and functionality

Fast and continuous updates of your selected feeds
The Google Mobile RSS reader makes it very easy to keep up with multiple websites and all of the content they produce. As soon as a new article is published, that content will be visible in your feed reading list under the appropriate website. This is a great way to save precious minutes in your day by not having to access each of your favorite websites individually.

Easy to discover new content
While adding new news sources to your feed list may seem like a daunting task considering how may sources are out there, with Google Mobile RSS reader, the task is ultra easy. All you have to do is run a quick search for any keyword or phrase you like and Google will populate a results page with a bunch of great related feeds you can add.

Google Reader public pages
Google allows you to post your favorite content to a page which is accessible to the general public. Using this page you can easily share links with your friends in an easy to access manner. In addition to this, it is only a one click process to select an item and share it.

Highlight feed items for further review
While browsing a bunch of feeds, you may come across an article which you want to come back to at a later time. With the Google reader you can add a star to the description of any news item by scrolling down to the bottom of the article and choosing “Add Star”.

My Conclusions

Overall, I am satisfied with the functionality of the Google Mobile RSS reader. It makes it very easy for an individual to keep up with a multitude of news content from their favorite sources across the web. I am also a big fan of having an online dashboard where I can make changes to my feed list etc.

That being said, the application still seems sparse to me. Why can I not select a feed item and send it via email right from my BlackBerry? Why can I not mark all of my feeds as read or unread?

This particular RSS reader is a good starting point for those who are new to RSS reading, but if you are truly a power user you may want to look at some of the other options available to you as a BlackBerry user.

Handy Tip courtesy of Digital Inspiration

With the Google Mobile RSS reader you can do something pretty cool that I have not seen anywhere else. You can actually convert any website that has an RSS feed into a mobile version sized for your BlackBerry. To do this you have to copy the feeds address and then add it to the end of a particular URL string associated with the Google Mobile RSS reader.

The format should look like this: http://www.google.com/reader/m/view/feed/[feed_address]

This is a great way to bookmark any sites you may keep tabs on that are not specifically formatted for mobile access.

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