NewsAlloy

Google Reader shares similarities with Google Mail, but NewsAlloy – which isn’t related to Google in any way – is virtually a clone of the webmail service. It has Archive and Delete buttons across the top with a More Actions drop-down box, just like Google Mail. The search bar is in almost the same position, and although messages you want to keep are pinned rather than starred, the process is otherwise identical to Google Mail. Even the loading message is eerily familiar.

Still, having Google Mail’s interface doesn’t do the reader any harm and there are plenty of useful innovations. A stack of icons down the right-hand side let you perform various actions such as selecting all the stories, expanding selected content, moving something to the archive and subscribing to a new feed. You can tag stories and also vote on them Digg-style.

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