Many users have been experiencing issues with Google's web based RSS feed reader service, Google Reader, going by
discussions on the company's product forums. Users were reporting that Google Reader was not displaying the full list of unread posts, read posts were being marked as unread and several other issues including subscriptions disappearing on their own, while using the service.
While a number of disgruntled users started populating the forums under the category 'Something is Broken!', someone from Google's product team responded on one of the threads that the Google Reader team had been notified and someone was looking into the matter.
Google has now told
CNET that the issue has been resolved, and has apologised to users who were affected. It's not clear if the issue was limited to certain regions but
TheNextWeb points to reports that suggested that it was affecting accounts across Europe and North and South America.
We tried using the service and did not encounter any of the issues that were reported in the support forums.
For the uninitiated, Google Reader is a web-based RSS feed reader that allows users to subscribe to different feeds and helps them in reading, sharing and managing stories included in the feed. Google has not updated the service after
redesigning it in October 2011, and integrating Google+ sharing with it. It had also removed friending, following, shared items and comments, with an intent of increasing Google+ usage, as it offered the same functionality. However, a number of Google Reader loyalists were unhappy with Google's decision.