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Apr
8
Using Google Reader For Your Link Blog
Filed Under Wordpress
Until now adding a Link List to Wordpress has been kind of a pain. You could mess with the template code or use Sidebar Widgets, both of which were less than ideal.
But now, thanks to Google (who else), it is trivial to have a link list that is easy for the blogger and useful for the reader. Here’s how:- If you don’t already use Google Reader for following RSS feeds, start!
- When you encounter an interesting item in your feeds click the Share button.
- On the Google Reader sidebar, click Shared Items
- You will see a message that “Your shared items are publicly accessible.” and a link to the RSS feed for your shared items. This feed is great for any friends that want to follow all your picks. But for you Wordpress asides cast your gaze down to the bit just below that says, “Put a clip on your site or blog”
- Clicking on this link will bring up a new window with some options and a Javascript code window. Set the Color scheme to ‘None” and remove all of the text in the Title field like so:
- Now copy the Javascript from the little window and add it to your sidebar.php file in your Wordpress template. Because you chose ‘None’ for the Color Scheme, the links will be returned as simple list-items and your own theme styling for list-items will be applied.
- Voila - you have a Link Blog or Asides List or whatever you like to call it. See the Asides section on my main page sidebar to watch this in action
very nice.. gotta give this a go.. its on my huge list of things to do
[…] came up with a clever idea to use Google reader shared lists as an Asidecategory for your sidebar. Granted people will be linking to someone else’s site […]
[…] asked if I knew how to display shared items from Google Reader in a blog, such as in the sidebar. David Paul Robinson explains how to put a “clip” on your blog that contains your shared items. You could probably […]
Thanks for the tip! I am definitely going to try that. I’ve played with the del.icio.us option, and it’s…. alright. I’m already a Google reader user, so definitely going to give this a shot.
Great post!