On the other hand, Google Reader just added a couple of new social features. They’re generally unobtrusive, except for a little “N people liked this” badge right at the top of many items.
First of all, this little bit of info needs to be out of the item content. Put it in the little bar that starts or ends an item where you have other GReader UI stuff. Second, there needs to be an option to turn this off completely.
Lifehacker has a couple of ways to eliminate the like misfeature with some client side, browser hacks.