Google Reader trying to take on Stumble Upon?

If you have recently in the past few hours logged in to your Google Reader you might have noticed a link to Google Reader Play. This is a concept where you can look up random and interesting articles on Google Reader with a very different and interesting layout. The layout of reader does not change and Reader Play is a totally different landing page. One playing around a bit with it, there is one website which surely must have started feeling a bit jittery.

That website would be Stumble Upon. Take a look at the image below and do not be mistaken. It is the layout for configuring the web pages you come across with Google Reader Play.

Google Reader Plus

• Visit http://google.com/reader/play for using Google Reader Plus.
• Unlike Reader you do not necessarily have to sign-in to view random and interesting web pages.
• The format is unique as in your do not see the entire page but just images and a bit of text and link to the page.
• This means images have become the key for getting a good viewing experience with Google Reader Plus.

Why Stumble Upon might feel the heat?

Websites like Stumble Upon or Digg deal with a community which promotes and drives traffic to websites. The fear is with Google being the number one search engine, what stops it from giving more and more relevance to a reader recommending an article on Google Reader rather than any other social media?

This sort of randomized looking at articles is very popular and I must say Google Reader Play does have a interesting and eye catching layout. I wonder now if they will take on websites like Stumble Upon and further end up dominating all facets of the internet or is this just a quirky service Google sometimes comes up with but hardly follows up on.

Try out Google Reader Play and write in your comments. I will surely be wanting to read your opinions.