The Google Reader blog announced some BIG features in the sharing department today. Now you can add shared content from anywhere without having to subscribe to its feed (also meaning you can add from sites without a feed), and you can add notes or commentary to anything you share. Google Reader’s previous lack of these two abilities is exactly why I chose to use Tumblr to import my Google Reader shared feed in to it to be published.

I’m not sure if the Google Reader team added these features to compete with Tumblr (which would be kind of odd since their main purpose is as a sweet web-based feed aggregator, which Tumblr isn’t even trying to be), or if it’s simply because their users have been asking for them. I know I submitted a feature request or two along these very lines. Tumblr still has one-up on Google Reader in that you can add feeds (such as Flickr favorites or Twitter tweets) to automatically be shared as they’re updated.

I’m planning to leave my Link Blog at Tumblr for now. I’m assuming the new Reader features will still work fine in the feed I send to Tumblr, and eliminating Tumblr would mean people subscribed to me would need to change to subscribe to my Reader Shared Items feed again. Still, it’s nice to see the Google Reader team continuing to improve and listen to user feedback.