It's lonely at the top

Google Reader , our newsreader of choice here at Social Signal (hunter-destroyer droids constantly prowl the premises, looking for holdouts still using Bloglines ... there's one now! KABOOM!)...

...anyway, Google Reader has launched a redesign . It's crisper, cleaner, simpler and faster.

But apparently, there's a downside: you'll have a lot fewer friends.

That is, if the screen capture on their blog post is any indication:

Sniff. But honestly: if they can't see the virtues of a cleaner and more usable design, were they really your friends to begin with?