I read an interesting post today on usrbingeek.com via Micro Persuasion; the idea that Google Reader could be the ultimate Digg-killer. In many ways I agree with this. With a few seemingly simple tweaks to the service, such as allowing others to see how many people are sharing or starring certain stories, Google Reader would become a HIGHLY personalized Digg-like service.

However since on Google Reader you are only viewing the sites/stories you want to see (which you can do on Digg kind of, though I suspect most people still use the front page for everything), a lot of great stories would undoubtedly be lost that are found on Digg because of their frontpage. Of course if Google Reader had an overall frontpage for the most popular stories (not just the sites you subscribe to) that problem would be solved.

I absolutely love Google Reader. I now barely ever go to any of the dozens of various sites I used to frequent unless if it’s to read more of a story or read the comments on a story. In a way it’s kind of like the TiVo of the Internet; you can quickly browse stories and star (bookmark) the ones you want to come back to, while fast forwarding through the rest and mostly skip commercials (ads).

Come to think of it, Google Reader right now is basically just a completely personalized Digg, where only you vote on what you think is a good story and then you can share it with others via the simple share button and your personalized share page. If Google could implement those few changes without losing the speed of the site (which runs laps around Digg), I really think there could be something to this idea of a Digg-killer.

I of course found the above mentioned stories thanks to my Google Reader…