Learn how Google Reader can help create a lifestream feed by merging multiple feeds into one. It’s easier than combining feeds in Yahoo Pipes.
A reader is looking for a web service that can aggregate all his online content in one place.
He writes – "I have two blogs and I am also active on Twitter, Flickr, delicious and YouTube. Is there a website that can aggregate everything and also provide a daily feed?"
Three possible solutions to the above problem are Google Reader, Yahoo! Pipes and FriendFeed. I prefer Google Reader because the Yahoo Pipes hack is slightly geeky while the FriendFeed hack will only import the post titles and image thumbnails into your lifestream feed, not the full content.
Lifestreaming with Google Reader
So let’s how we can convert Google Reader into a life-streaming application:
Step 1: Open Google Reader and subscribe to any one of your RSS feeds (say it’s a tumblr blog).
Step 2: Go to Feed Settings –> Add to a Folder –> New Folder and give it some name – let’s call this folder ‘lifestream’.
Step 3: Add all your feeds from YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, etc. to this new ‘lifestream’ folder.
Step 4: Go to Google Reader Settings –> Folders and Tags and change the sharing mode of lifestream folder from private to public.
Step 5: Next open the "view public page" link to see all your different feeds in one place.
We aren’t done yet. Make sure you burn the feed address of this lifestream folder in Google Reader via FeedBurner before sharing on the web. The reason is because tomorrow if you migrate the lifestream from Google Reader to another service, you won’t lose any subscribers.
To embed the lifestream RSS feed in web page, you may either go with JavaScript gadgets or Flash widgets.
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/blogging/lifestreaming-aggregate-rss-feeds-with-google-reader/5131/
Tags: best, feature, google reader, hacks, lifestreaming, rss, Blogging
Reader Comments
if those are the only services @b50 needs, then he could also look at sweetcron ( link . have installed it (hence proved its not too geeky :) ).. comments can be enabled for each entry with disqus…
Written by manuscrypts on 10.29.08
Why would you want to do this?
Written by Beth Kanter on 10.29.08
This is a good, hmmm, maybe even better alternative to those lifestreaming website/plugins. thanks for the tip.
Written by deuts on 10.29.08
Isn’t Friendfeed a better option for this? And easier to deal with at that?
Written by Aditya on 10.30.08
@beth – maybe to provide a single feed that contains everything you upload / share online.
@aditya – Friendfeed does only titles and image thumbnails, Google reader does the full article so it’s a much better option for people who want to see full content in their feed readers.
Written by Amit on 10.30.08
interesting way to do it. think ill keep Google reader for the work related stuff so i dont get side tracked more than i do now.
Written by marketing agency gold coast on 11.03.08
Try link . Seems perfect for the job.
My lifestream is at link
(I’m not connected with them in any way – I just came across the site yesterday)
Written by James Ward on 11.20.08