Google Reader’s New Bundles Make Sharing Feeds User Friendly
You might be a master of your feed reader and the nuances of RSS, but what if importing an OPML file is out of your friend’s comfort range? Google Reader’s Bundle feature makes sharing simple.
Creating a bundle of your feeds to share is as simple as dragging and dropping. When logged into Google Reader click on the “Browse for stuff” link in the left hand navigation panel. On the right hand side of the screen is a column for bundles, click the “Create a bundle” button. From there you’ll see the bundle creation tool, as seen in the screenshot above. Scroll through your subscription list, adding feeds with a simple drag and drop. If you want to remove a feed from the bundle just drag it to the trash can. You can assign a title and description to the bundle and specify whether or not you want it added to your Shared items section. When you save the bundle you’ll be given three links for emailing the bundle, putting a link on your website, or downloading the OPML file. Google Reader Bundles make it easy to share the great content you’ve gathered with friends, even the ones who glaze over when you start talking in acronyms.
Easily Create Your Own Feed Bundles of Joy with Google Reader [Tech Crunch]
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
I would really be interested in the Lifehacker editors putting together some bundles of the feeds they find most interesting. I know I have seen a trend in some of the articles linked on this site, but I am sure there are some blogs/news sources I am not aware of.
Am I the only one that finds the unread count a tad bit ridiculous? I think you should lose some feeds there buddy.
skotmxpx
@Wolverine4444: The one's without links in the names themselves, of course...
I don't use Google Reader, but I want the links to the sites in the picture!
Google has often been accused of neglecting basic functionality in favor of obscure features hardly anyone will ever use. Google Reader is a textbook example.
Why, after all this time, does Reader still lack the most BASIC, OBVIOUS of features? Whether you call them "Filters" or "Smart Folders" or "Saved Searches," it's all the same concept: Show me, with one click, all the posts that contain terms that I predefine. Example: [commanche OR cherokee -jeep].
Why, Google? Why?
- AJ
Alaska Jack
@y5: Oh cool, I use reader very rarely now, not as much as I used to. And most people I know would rather get emails with links, since they don't use reader.
matilde
@matilde: I might. Many of us in the IT department where I work use Reader, and share things with each other regularly.
Does anyone actually use this? I won't, and will never do it.
matilde
Oh this is definitely awesome. Now to find some friends who use feeds. ;) At least it will help me get them to install the ones I use and see what they are missing!
@Wolverine4444: If you were using Reader and made friends with Jason, you'd have them already.
jupiterthunder
@emilyd2: Google Reader supports tagging. If you organize your subscriptions into sub groups, every article automatically gets a tag based on the groups name. All the feeds I read for Lifehacker are auto tagged LH. In addition you can tag any individual post with keywords by pressing T while focused on that article or by going to the footer and clicking "Edit Tags"
Hitting G then T immediately after will open up your cloud of tags for easy navigation among the posts you've tagged.
@skotmxpx: I agree when you have thousands of feeds you don't pay attention to them all, you just click, mark as read and don't read the feeds.
Is there a way to organize individual posts in Google Reader, rather than the entire blog? I've saved a ton of posts I want to refer back to, mostly Lifehacker posts that particularly interest me that I could categorize into Studying/School, Tech, etc. Any ideas?
emilyd2
@skotmxpx: Ha, I was thinking the same thing... of course if one does have that many unread items then the filters as Alaska Jack mentioned would be a pretty necessary feature.
Nicholas Cole
Can anyone help me? Trying to do a research project where about 50 blogs are the data sources. I have the blogs set up in Google Reader, but here's the problem. How can I get them into Excel? I want to just copy/paste the Google Reader format into Excel, but it is not working. That is, I would like 1) name of blog; 2) blog entry title; 3) URL; 4) date of entry and then several other columns in Excel for coding. Have tried just copying (control 'c') from the Reader, then control 'v' in Excel, but that does not work. Any ideas would be greatly welcomed!
AlvitaCinna
@emilyd2: You could also, alternatively, sign up for a Diigo account and tag your LH posts as such in it. The great thing about Diigo is that it also caches them, so if something horrible happened and Lifehacker lost data (God help us if that ever happened because LH is my life!) you can still pull it up.
What's really cool about Diigo is that you can highlight things on a page (say a cool comment or one sentence that grabs you) and even place a sticky note on the page too!
Diigo is so much better than delicious. I'm not affiliated with them at all. I'm just a happy user.
magnoliasouth
First off, it has some glitches. In fact, it doesn't even work for me. I'm using Ubuntu Hardy Heron with Firefox 3 and I've already reported this to Google in its Group (add your vote there too if you have an issue).
Secondly, I have to agree with Alaska Jack (odd that, I have a relative named Nevada Jack) in that Google has missed the boat on this one. Search and labeling needs serious tweaking before they go anywhere else in Reader. I mean, I STILL cannot figure out how to filter articles that I've labeled "cool" or anything else. It's just plain sad.
magnoliasouth
@skotmxpx: Why? I have a high number as well and I scan all of them in List view, picking out the ones that I think sound interesting. It takes only a matter of minutes.
I never can understand why anyone wants to tell someone how to do something which is a personal preference. I ran into something similar with delicious when someone said that another user needed to pare down their tags. It doesn't belong to the "advisor" and the user is perfectly capable of making their own decisions on that.
magnoliasouth
@louiszampini: Great idea! Show us your feeds.
HTB
@louiszampini: We read hundreds of feeds and thousands of articles every day to bring the best content to you here are Lifehacker... to save you from having to read hundreds of feeds and thousands of articles every day to find them ;-)
@skotmxpx: I appreciate your concern over pixels being misappropriated. Feel free to "mark all as read" on your own feed reader if you find such wanton misuse of screen space upsetting.
I don't mean to sound like a fkkkng b*st*rd but I don't want to share. Furthermore, it would be nice if I could trim away the crap on the left, such that Reader shows only feed names on the left, and nothing much else. I'm thinking of an Explorer style of viewing things.
It's the extra stuff that I don't need.
paintbox