Being a big fan of RSS feeds and having information in the “cloud”, I’m a perpetual Google Reader user.

I think the latest Google Reader enhancement of offering a place to comment on shared items and respond back creates an interesting and educational dialogue between friends.

It’s like a mini-FriendFeed except your friends don’t have to sign up for a new service. They don’t have to do anything they don’t normally do, other than click the “Share” button on items.

My only point is, I want more friends on Google Reader.

I like reading what my friends are reading. I may skim or ignore some stuff, but as I said (via Google Reader comments) recently, seeing/reading what people share is a window into how they think.

Also, since I tend to over index on tech news, it is always good to read about other topics that my friends find important.

Today, I read a short post along these lines on inessential.com. I completely agree with the following statement:

I’d rather hear what any of my friends says on any topic, rather than what people I don’t know say about a specific article. And I think that’s more and more true for more people, now that we’ve all seen what on-site comments are like, and how they’re getting worse.

Inessential.com isn’t a blog I subscribe to. How did I come across this post? Was I trying to find more friends via Google?

No. Louis Gray’s Shared Items feed. I don’t know Louis Gray personally, but he is a prolific sharer (is that a word?) and happens to consume a lot of information I find intriguing.

You know what I would find even more fascinating?

Anything shared by someone I know in real life.