Readness.com wants to find news for you:

They’ve adopted the “scrobble” idea from last.fm: scrobbling indicates your interest in something, which tells the site that it’s relevant to you. You install an extension (Google Chrome only, at this point), which adds a button to your browser toolbar for sharing the page you’re currently reading. Pages you’ve scrobbled are used to help find more relevant news articles for you, and if you use their iPhone app, Broadersheet, those articles are automatically synchronized over for reading later.

Any sort of service like this has privacy implications, but it looks like these folks have thought things through. There’s a FAQ / Privacy link in the footer that explains how things work, and they have a 15 minute grace period between you pushing data to them before they actually display it, so if you share something accidentally, you have time to undo it before the world sees. It’s a nice thought.

Speaking of privacy, it’s important to note that Facebook Connect is required to use the site. It’s a bit of a disappointment; that would be great if it was optional. I’m hopeful that they’ll address this at some point in the future.

I like the site: the design is simple, but they’re cultivating a personality — the site talks to you like a real person, and there are photos of adorable animals sprinkled through at appropriate times. I’m not sure the site is ready for prime time yet — requiring a Chrome extension to be installed is a bit of a pain — but I see some potential.

Follow them at @plc/broadersheet.