Google released a new myware feature today to Google Reader: it’s statistics that analyze your reading pattern over time. You can see which blogs you are paying the most attention to and on which days, weeks, and months you are reading more than others. It’s a great feature and there’s plenty of converage elsewhere - see Techmeme (Steve Rubel was my original source).

It’s interesting to me that this new Google myware feature is so well-received. Myware is slowly sheading its stigma as spyware’s born-again second chance to play nice. It’s a terrible attitude towards a terrific set of services, and I’m glad to see Google willing to risk its brand goodwill on an obvious myware play.

Think I’m wrong about the public perception of myware? Just check out the wikipedia entry on the subject. It is classified as a “malware-related article,” and the tone is pretty discouraging:

Myware or MyWare refers to Spyware that a user installs to monitor themselves. Why would we want to spy on ourselves? To answer that question, we need to consider who is spying on us now and why they do it.

Yuck! “Spying on yourself” has a Big Brother-esque ring to it. Perhaps if people discussed myware as “personal metadata analysis” people would be more receptive. Dropping the “spyware” derrivative name would be helpful too.