It's been about a year since wordpress.com released their RSS reader functionality.

Here's a screen shot of the reader taken earlier today. And here's a link to the Matt Mullenweg post where he says a new version is shipping this week.

If you have an account on wordpress.com, this link should take you to the reader.

It'd be interesting to speculate on what might be in a new reader.

1. I have subscribed to several feeds but only one appears to be updating today. That should change after I publish this post, since I am subscribed to this feed.

3. There's a ton of whitespace on the reader page. It's nice to have a little space between items, but it's also nice to get some news on the page too! (Sorry for the sarcasm.)

4. Is there a way to import or export an OPML subscription list?

5. I would, if I were them, strip the markup from descriptions. When I'm skimming, the markup is disruptive. The goal should be to have every post take exactly the same amount of vertical height, and not very much. They human brain is great at skimming, if you set things up the right way.

6. This is what my ideal for a reader looks like.

7. BTW, I like that they did a river of news, and not a mail-oriented reader. It's the right way to go, imho.