Google Reader is one of the most powerful ways to consume content published via RSS feeds. Reader allows you to post a folder of your RSS feeds in a handy widget. Here’s how to embed a widget of your starred articles. You can follow the same process for embedding any folder in your Reader account.
Here’s a messy view of my Google Reader page:
- Embedding a list of your starred articles only works if you have “Starred” an article in your Google Reader (duh) – you can see the starred article in Engadget about the iPhone 4′s case.
- Click on “Settings” on the top right corner of your Google Reader page
- Click on “Reader Settings”
- Click on “Folders and Tags”
- Click on “add a clip to your site”
- The window below will pop up. You can customize the color of your Google Reader widget as well as the title, # of items displayed and notes you add in your reader account (didn’t know you could add notes to your articles in Google Reader did you?!
- Highlight the code by clicking inside the code and hitting CTRL + A (or Command + A on a Mac). Copy the text by hitting CTRL + C (or Command + C on a Mac).
- I prefer to put the widget in the sidebar of my WordPress Blog. If you use WordPress you should go to your Dashboard – Appearance – Widgets – Text Widget
- Here’s the text widget with the code pasted in (Use CTRL + V to paste the code you copied earlier using CTRL + C).
- Here’s the final widget in my sidebar with the “iPhone 4′s out case…” article that I starred. Remember that you can do the same thing with any folder you set up in your Google Reader account.
- Let me know if that helped or if you have any other questions about embedding a Google Reader widget in your (WordPress) sidebar.
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Yeah, since it's a widget controlled by Google there's no way that I know of
controlling it's behavior in that way. Sorry. Thx for stopping by and
leaving a comment though.
Just read through all the comments, sorry, I didn't realize this was addressed already. If anyone has a solution, let us know.
Thanks.
This is great, thanks. I would love to know how to make this open as a new smaller widow, while keeping my reader on my site? Is there a way to do this?
Agreed. Keep up the good work!
You have your objectives for your site and I have mine, and if sharing the last 5 or 10 articles you have read is your objective, this approach works great. I, on the other hand, want people to be able to search my Google Reader content because those bookmarks are valuable resources as well as a statement on my personal brand. I think it's one of the ultimate ironies in technology that the company that brought us search as we know it doesn't allow people to search the bookmarks we share with them. Hopefully this will be fixed in the very near future...
Agreed. Keep up the good work!
You have your objectives for your site and I have mine, and if sharing the last 5 or 10 articles you have read is your objective, this approach works great. I, on the other hand, want people to be able to search my Google Reader content because those bookmarks are valuable resources as well as a statement on my personal brand. I think it's one of the ultimate ironies in technology that the company that brought us search as we know it doesn't allow people to search the bookmarks we share with them. Hopefully this will be fixed in the very near future...
Gotcha. I'm the other way around -- I curate 97% of my content and create
the other 3%...
I appreciate the info on the non-searchable aspect Todd. I never saw
the goal of the widget as a search feature though. The goal is to
provide readers a good resource for what you find important in your
own reading. It would be nice if it were searchable too but the goal
isn't search results in this case, it's providing helpful content for
visitors of your page.
Great tutorial Andy. I just figured this out about a week ago but I wasn't aware that I could do the same for 'any' folder in my reader acct. You are always the go to man for technology, keep up the good work!
Great tutorial Andy. I just figured this out about a week ago but I wasn't aware that I could do the same for 'any' folder in my reader acct. You are always the go to man for technology, keep up the good work!
Todd, I figured they weren't searchable actually. The point of the post wasn't to add search function to the site, it was to add value to the visitors of your page without making your site a big version of Google Reader. By that I mean you can make way for original content and still have repurposed content on your site. I choose to write 95% original posts and add the Google Reader as a side bar function. That's my style while others have different approaches. Thx for clarifying the lack of searchability for those who might have wondered about that.
Todd, I figured they weren't searchable actually. The point of the post wasn't to add search function to the site, it was to add value to the visitors of your page without making your site a big version of Google Reader. By that I mean you can make way for original content and still have repurposed content on your site. I choose to write 95% original posts and add the Google Reader as a side bar function. That's my style while others have different approaches. Thx for clarifying the lack of searchability for those who might have wondered about that.
Good post, Andy, but I've found one terrible shortcoming with sharing a Google Reader feed -- ironically enough, the Google Reader feed results are NOT SEARCHABLE. I therefore favor placing a FriendFeed widget in the sidebar from a FriendFeed account that is set to automagically import my Google Reader feed. True, FriendFeed is in limbo due to the Facebook acquisition, but it works fine for the moment and it IS searchable! btw, another plugin that works well for this is Jake Goldman's "Google Reader Recommended Reading"...
Good post, Andy, but I've found one terrible shortcoming with sharing a Google Reader feed -- ironically enough, the Google Reader feed results are NOT SEARCHABLE. I therefore favor placing a FriendFeed widget in the sidebar from a FriendFeed account that is set to automagically import my Google Reader feed. True, FriendFeed is in limbo due to the Facebook acquisition, but it works fine for the moment and it IS searchable! btw, another plugin that works well for this is Jake Goldman's "Google Reader Recommended Reading"...
Daniel, great question. You want to have the links in the Google Reader open in a new window right? Users can always hit CTRL + click on the link but that's extra work for them. Didn't find a solution out there unfortunately since it's JavaScript and I'm not smart enough to know how to change that. Anybody out there have a tip for us?
Daniel, great question. You want to have the links in the Google Reader open in a new window right? Users can always hit CTRL + click on the link but that's extra work for them. Didn't find a solution out there unfortunately since it's JavaScript and I'm not smart enough to know how to change that. Anybody out there have a tip for us?
You know, Andy, the one option I wish this had was to open the links in a new window. I love to provide readers w/additional information but when they click on this it closes them out of my site and then they have to click back and re-scroll to where they were. Any tips? Am I missing an option? I sure didn't see one. Thanks for what you do. -Dan
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How to embed Google Reader widget in your web page / sidebar – http://ow.ly/1SAq2
New post 4 you How to add Google Reader list to your web site http://ow.ly/17A2fN
This is very helpful for sharing content. How to add Google Reader list to your web site http://ow.ly/1TlkZ (via @andytraub)
RT @andytraub: New post 4 you How to add Google Reader list to your web site http://ow.ly/17A2fN
RT @TopsyRT: How to add Google Reader list to your web site http://bit.ly/bxtvpV. Great blog, check it out!