Media is now triathlon. People are  going beyond just consumption process. They are actively producing and sharing content. Infact lot of production is nothing but sharing in new context and in new format. That's why sharing is a huge deal. That's why sharing tools will be extremely important in growing digital media. I use Google Reader for sharing RSS feeds. Its super fast and ease of sharing is outstanding.

Today Google Reader team announced new features in their popular feed reader. Share and Email feature was already there, they expanded sharing option to include notes and now allowing any arbitrary webpage to be shared using Google. Sort of like mashup of Clipmarks and Feed reader. Though I am chuckling at the title of Jenna's post - "Share anything. Anytime. Anywhere". I doubt anywhere is fully convincing at this stage. Real anywhere will mean I can share anywhere, most importantly out of Google Reader. For example my notes should show up in Twitter, with tinyurl pointing back to Google Reader shared page. I am chuckling because MessageDance just rolled out new home page with Anywhere to Anywhere sharing promise.

Recently we spend lot of time around Google Reader. MessageDance lets Google Reader users blog their feeds, which in subsequent downstream distribution shows up at Facebook, Twitter and potentially any website where they have MessageDance widget. We did standard shared content transformation to suit the destination. Now sharing is a touchy topic since it includes republishing and potentially migrating conversations. We took extra care in putting reblogging credits to original authors. Publishers not only get recognition but also new traffic.

To me any tool which cuts down hassle-time is a good one to have in the toolbox. Google Reader works very well for me.