Two bits of news from Google, one good, one bad.

First, the good news: Niall discovered the Google Reader API. This is really very cool. Way back in 2003, a bunch of folks (headed by Steve Nieker of Waypath/Sphere) put together an attempt to do something essentially like this, but for obvious business reasons, it never went anywhere. We also played around with an API for Blogdigger Groups (which basically allowed you to manage subscriptions, get data, etc.), which a few people do actually use. It will be interesting to see the different apps that are built on top of this. It's this kind of stuff, being out there, available and accessible, that pushes things forward in a big way. Well done.

And the the bad: we kind of expected this, but it looks like Google Base is off limits (via Marc). Robots exclusion is not what I would consider conclusive evidence, but all signs ,so far, point to his being a closed system. And that's the type of thing that sets us back however hard we try to push ahead. Update: and this just in, Danny Sullivan reports Google Base now uses Jump Pages.

Ah well; sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar, well...