Has Google Reader Just Taken the First Step Towards Digg With Trends?

While reading some feeds on Google Reader just now a brand new feature caught my eye: Google Reader Trends. Clicking on the link takes you to a page with a lot of data including the following:

" From your 55 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 11,906 items, starred 388 items, and shared 54 items."

It keeps track of what you've starred, what you've shared, and what you've read...with some pretty nice graphs and data on each.

This could very well be Google Reader's first step towards Digg as was buzzed about on the Internet just a few days ago.

What's completely clear now is that the user statistical data is there and ready to go...the question is how long until Google utilizes it to showcase the 'most starred' or 'most shared' of Google Reader?

Again, find it here.

UPDATE: The Google Reader Blog writes about the new feature here.

"It then occurred to me that there were plenty of things that could be dug up about the items that a person reads and the feeds they are subscribed to."

I see the word 'dug' there. One 'g' not two.