Digg Reader getting unread count for feeds and folders tomorrow

There are over 7.7 million feeds on Digg Reader now, popular social news website Digg has announced in a post. The service was launched only last week as one of the alternatives to the popular Google Reader and Digg even introduced Reader as an add-on to its existing iOS app.

Digg plans to introduce some new features to its Reader service in the coming week including a Mark as Unread button and a toggle to view only unread items/folders. Starting tomorrow, Digg Reader users will also be able to view unread counts for feeds and folders.

At the time of making the Reader fully accessible to the public, Digg had said that their feed count had grown from over 3.3 million feeds to roughly 4.5 million feeds. The first batch of Digg Reader invites had been sent out last week to participants who contributed to its development with their suggestions. Soon after, access was doled out to those had previously signed up for an early access.

Getting new features this week

The popular social news website had been working on its Reader service for some time now but sped up the process only after Google announced that Google Reader will retire after July 1. Digg Reader has content from publishers in 25 categories and sources that have been recommended by Digg’s editors. Digg promises that those used to Google Reader will find themselves at home – at least as far as keyboard shortcuts are concerned; for instance, j and k to move between articles, s to save, d to Digg and v to view URL.

Depending on their preferences, users can view feeds in either List or Expanded View. They can also save their feeds to Instapaper, Pocket or Readability, or share articles to Twitter and Facebook. Other Digg Reader features include the ability to Digg posts you like, save posts for later viewing. In addition to options like 'Mark as Unread' and 'View Only Unread', Digg plans to let users to rank and sort stories by popularity, article length. It will also introduce tools that enable users to organise feeds and options for sharing articles on to Linkedin, Google+ and other networks.

The Android app for Digg Reader is expected in July.