I've been using Google Reader for about 5 years now, and I had been using their "shared items" feature not to actually share items, but to essentially save them.  If I came across something interesting or noteworthy in my RSS feeds, I'd "share" it, but since my shared items were kept private, they were essentially saved items.  Google pushed out an update to Reader recently to make things look nicer and integrate with their latest Facebook knock-off, and in doing so they got rid of the old shared items system.  They "conveniently" offered the opportunity to download old shared items in JSON format, which for all intents and purposes is completely useless to anyone who doesn't currently write software that utilizes JSON.  Needless to say, I disagree with Google's decision to do away with this feature, I'm annoyed by their attempt at softening the blow, and I have yet another reason why I hate depending on web technologies instead of writing my own software.