This is kind of odd, I logged in to Google reader for the first time in a while and I had heard about the new sharing features, but I wasn’t quite prepared for what I saw. The controversy is detailed here

but what was weirder for me, was the fact that my Google Reader shared folder essentially had a splog hosted by Google until I emptied out my shared folder. Basically a small number of contacts including oddly enough, Aaron Wall of SEO Book fame, were able to see whatever horrifying items I had tucked away in my feeds folder. Frankly, I emptied it before I looked to see what damage was done. It was kind of amazing that they would do this but I’m the last person to be advising Google on ethics. But check this out:

You think these pages aren’t going to get widgetized ala Facebook and sooner rather than later?

While everybody was sleepy and hanging out between the holidays. Google gave Wikipedia the finger and launched a social network that looks at first blush seeks to weld a stronger blog style format on to a social network.

Google’s in a rush here and rolling this out, it shows they were caught by surprise by Facebook and are worried.