Google has unveiled a beta of its Google Reader, a web-based RSS reader, to the search engine's registered users.

The reader is similar to the online service offered by NewsGator, allowing users to subscribe to RSS feeds and receive a notification when a website publishes an update. 

"We often get asked how anyone is supposed to keep up with the firehose of stuff launched from the web's spigot, so we're offering Reader as a way to help, " said Chris Wetherell, software engineer for the Google Reader, on his blog. 

In addition to an overview of multiple feeds, the service allows users to perform targeted searches based on news sources or topics.

Google already enables users to subscribe to RSS feeds on its personalised homepage. 

A beta of the personal front page was released in May and the project 'graduated' from Google Labs last week to become a finished product.

Google unveiled the service at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco.