Looks like Google just made an update to the personalized homepages...one second I had my usual view of RSS feeds I have on the page, and then a refresh later there were plus signs next to all the stories. Clicking on the plus signs shows a snippet of the story, and now dates are showing up as well:

http://www.nirajsanghvi.com/images/misc/google_ig_feeds_update.jpg

Unfortunately, I don't have it :-S But are you sure it's an update and no a module you installed?

Nice touch... but I dont have it either.

I've just realised how handy Google Reader is – I had to actually add a news module onto the page, as I normally use the Reader Gadget.

Yep, it's for real. One of my accounts has it but some of my other ones don't. I noticed that if you logout and log back in that might help, or if you try switching browsers. I was able to get it in some of my accounts when I did that. If you want more info on the updated module I wrote up a quick article about it, but the screenshot posted above pretty much explains things:
http://tech.cybernetnews.com/2007/01/22/google-updates-feed-reader-module-expandcontract-the-article/

Just showed up for me. Looks clunky.

PS;

I can't even TELL you how much I don't like this. Needless, Clunky, goes against the clean streamlined look.

Yech.

Some have times and dates...others don't. They're not shown in chronological order, either.

I have it. Pretty cool. I like it better than before actually.

Ok I got it too now, thanks Niraj ;)

I've got it now. There's also a new message at the top:

"welcome to your google homepage. make it your own"...

I actually quite like this.
Philipp could you implement polls in blogoscoped? Just to see what people think about even small issues about this. The moderators could set it up if your away or a new topic comes up etc..

Brinke, while agree that it looks clunky, I really like the added functionality (hopefully they fix the inconsistent date issue). It'd just look nicer with a smaller button with a less bold plus sign. Currently it's fairly distracting.

It's heavily distracting, and makes skimming my homepage for updated items very difficult. A lot of visual clutter for little return value (nearly impossible to determine whether I want to read something by two or three sentences. No better than just a title, at least.)

Sometimes the headline and preview appear to be mismatched as new headlines are added.
   http://faithfulweb.wordpress.com/2007/01/23/google-rss-snippets-misfiring/
Overall, though, the preview is helpful in determining the level of truth-in-advertising for any given headline to see whether it's worth clicking through to the full article.

Is anyone experiencing issues where this feature is appearing and disappearing on only some feeds? Earlier this morning some of my feeds had the plus signs, but the Blogoscoped feed did not. Now it does. I wonder if they're tweaking it...it's odd that I still have some feeds without the feature.

i have had this since november

Yup I have seen the little + sign next to the text disappear then come back. wish they'd ditch it and go back to the old format. half the times when you click the + sign it says click on article for details.

I only had the problem of inconsistency today, and it seems to be working again right now...strange. I do like having the option to read posts without going to the site, but those buttons should really be made smaller.