Social Networking Potential for Google

Google Reader recently launched something called Notes which a combination of Twitter and Google Shared Stuff. Basically, notes made Google Reader a platform for you to stay connected with your friends and update each other on stuff you are up to lately (kind of). But it seems so far that Google's attempts to socialize its products have been bits and pieces here and there. Imagine grouping all Google product feeds into one place, probably your Gmail Chat window, just like this:
Not just your shared notes would be showed, but also public events in Google Calendar, Google Docs documents you share with your friends, YouTube videos, photos in Picasa Web Album, or even comments you make on Blogger. One platform that informs you of your friend's latest Google activities just like what Facebook is doing. However, this could potentially be more powerful than Facebook since Google products focuses on productivity while Facebook is just for fun. Corporates would find this a perfect tool to better connect its employees and improve efficiency. What do you think?

Google Gears

For those who have been waiting so long for Google Reader to go offline, Google has finally found a solution they name as Google Gears. The open source browser extension enables web applications to provide offline functionality using following JavaScript APIs. Here are its functionalities:

Google Gears marks an important step in the evolution of web applications because it addresses a major user concern: availability of data and applications when there’s no Internet connection available, or when a connection is slow or unreliable. As application developers and users alike want to do more on the web—whether it’s email or CRM or photo editing—enhancements that make the browser environment itself more powerful are increasingly important.
- Google Press Release | Entire Release

Google Gears currently works on Firefox 1.5+ and Internet Explorer 6+ under OS X, Linux, and Windows XP/Vista and is a developer-only version.

To start reading your feed offline, simply click the "Offline" link in the top right of Google Reader. As predicted by Haochi from Googlified, Google Gears is expected to be integrated with Gmail, Google Docs and Spreadsheet, Google Notebook and thousands of other web applications (not necessarily hosted by Google) that stores users' data.

Related: Download | FAQ

Google Reader shows videos

Ever read a blog post with a embedded video but doesn't display properly in Google reader or personalized homepage? This era has gone. Now Google Reader supports embedded videos from Google Video and YouTube*. You see the latest Google Tech Talks by Kai-Fu Lee, Greater China President, when visiting the Seattle area Google office on January. [Warning: 53mins long]

* - This also includes other popular video sharing sites including MySpace, Jumpcut, Grouper, IFILM, Metacafe, Vimeo, vSocial.

Related: Official Google Reader Blog - Getting embedded in Google Reader