Yesterday Google announced some big changes to Google Reader which will impact FeedDemon (and every other application that uses the unofficial Google Reader API).

In an effort to better integrate with Google+, Reader is retiring friending, following and shared link blogs. That means the social features in FeedDemon that rely on Google Reader will eventually stop working.

They won't stop working right away, though. Google will continue to support those features in its API even after they disappear from Reader's UI. But at some point (I don't know when yet) they will cease to function, and you'll be unable to share articles in FeedDemon or follow the shared articles of other users.

Before that happens, I'll release a new version of FeedDemon that removes those features. But I won't do that until the new Reader goes live and I have a chance to test against it, which will likely take a few weeks.

I am, of course, disappointed to see those features disappear. I know a lot of FeedDemon customers will miss them, and I'll personally mourn the loss of shared articles since that's something I use every day.

I'm very pleased to announce the availability of FeedDemon 3.1.  Despite the minor version change, this is a significant release – there are some major new features which I think you're going to love.
If you're in a hurry and don't want to read the rest of this post, you can check out the release notes for details on what's new, or you can skip all that and simply download FeedDemon 3.1 right now.
Still with me?  Good!  I'd like to introduce you to some of the new features…
FeedDemon 3.1 Gets Social
My favorite new feature is "Shared by People I Follow."  If you're following people in Google Reader, their shared items now appear in FeedDemon, and as I mentioned in my previous post, these shared items are included when finding and suggesting popular items.  I've found this to be a great way to uncover interesting articles in feeds I'm not subscribed to.

When an article has been shared by someone, their profile photo appears next to it so you can easily identify who shared it.  To view posts shared by a specific person, just click their photo.

If you're not following anyone, FeedDemon makes it really easy to find people to follow – just enter a few keywords:

…and FeedDemon shows a list of people with matching profiles:
 
Click "Preview" to view a newspaper containing recently shared items from that person, or just click "Follow" to follow them right away.  If you get tired of someone, select "Show People I Follow" and click "Unfollow" to stop following them.
Filtering Content
In the past you were forced to see every article from every feed you're subscribed to, but now you can use FeedDemon 3.1's "Content Filters" to hide the stuff you don't care about.  Just create a content filter, assign it to whichever feeds you like, and articles in those feeds matching the filter will be marked read as soon as they arrive so you don't see them.

Content filters can be used to either include or exclude articles based on your keywords – and if you subscribe to a feed which has several different authors, you can use a content filter to show or hide articles from specific authors.
I personally use this feature to deal with all the high-traffic tech feeds I'm subscribed to which rarely talk about things I care about.  Now instead of seeing every single article, I have a content filter which automatically hides stuff that doesn't interest me.
Translate Item
I'm subscribed to a lot of search feeds that tell me when someone blogs or tweets about FeedDemon, which really helps me stay in touch with how people feel about my work.  Quite often I'll see something written in a different language, so I have to translate it in order to figure out what it says – a time-consuming process, especially when there are several items that need translating.
FeedDemon 3.1 solves this with the addition of the "translate" icon which now appears beneath each item.  Simply click this icon and FeedDemon will translate the item into your language.
 
Performance Improvements
If you've used my software for a long time, then you probably know I'm a performance freak.  I hate waiting for software to perform a task, and I figure you do, too, so I spend a lot of time figuring out how to squeeze as much speed out my software as possible.  In fact, the name "FeedDemon" was intended as a play on the phrase "speed demon."
So it really bothered me when I read several complaints about FeedDemon 3.0 being slow.  Even though a lot of people found v3.0 to be significantly faster than previous versions, some people reported just the opposite.  I privately contacted several customers who reported performance problems and asked for their help in figuring out what was going wrong.
The end result?  We found out why it was performing slowly, and every one of these customers has told me that FeedDemon 3.1 is once again the speed demon it used to be.  If you ran into performance issues with the previous release, I urge you to upgrade to version 3.1.  If after upgrading you still find it to be slow, try selecting File > Manage Cache > Compact to defragment FeedDemon's database (a few customers have reported that doing this made a big difference).
And Lots of Small Stuff
So that's a look at the major new features, but as with every release, there are tons of small improvements, changes and fixes in FeedDemon 3.1, all of which are covered in the release notes.
Download FeedDemon 3.1
PS: If you have any questions about the new version, rather than post a comment here, I recommend asking in the FeedDemon Support Group instead.