Sean Reiser

I'd like to think that I'm a smart guy (not always wise, but smart) and someone who uses social media and understands what he's doing most of the time, but I've become confused by the actions I can now take in Google Reader.

Until recently there were 2 options "Star" and "Share" (optionally with a note). It was nice a simple, if I read an article and thought it was noteworthy I'd share it, through Google Reader's RSS feed, it gets slurped up by FriendFeed and pushed to Twitter and Facebook. On the other hand if I'm reading an article and need to followup on it later, I star it and unstar it when I'm done with it. Nice and simple.

Now they've added a like option and I'm confused. Like many folks playing in the social media space, I think of "like" and "favorite" as "interesting" or "noteworthy", which is how you can "like" a story on Michael Jackson's passing. I agree it's a nomenclature problem, but quite frankly so is "friend". Social Media redefines these terms.

So, back to Google Reader, I understand that when you "like" something other people who are looking at the same story are told you like it and when you share something other people see it in your RSS feed and on your page. Other then that, what's the difference? I can't come up with a use case where I would read an article I like it but wouldn't share it nor can I think of a time when I'd want to share something I didn't like (using the above description).

So, have you used both Like and Share in Google Reader. If so what's the difference to you?