How To Share Google Reader Stories to Google Plus

How To Share Google Reader Stories to Google Plus:

Those of us who are still playing with Google Plus are eagerly awaiting its further integration into other Google services (in ways other than the red box in the top right corner). The updates are coming slowly but surely; Google Docs is now integrated with Hangouts, Google Maps can be shared as posts, and Plus posts are starting to appear in Google Web search.

But Google Plus is built around sharing, and one of Google's best sharing services is missing: Google Reader. It's the free RSS reader that lets anyone subscribe to any website's feed, and it's behind some of the most popular RSS client apps, like Feedly. But there's no built in way to share articles from Google Reader with your circles on Plus. Fortunately, you can make one pretty easily. Here's how.

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These are the steps to add Google Plus as a service on your Google Reader. Once you've set this up, all you have to do to share an article is the bit in the last step.

1. Go to Google Reader, click the gear icon, and choose 'Reader settings'
   
   





2. Click the 'Send To' tab
   
   





3. Scroll down all the way and click 'Create a custom link'
   
   





4. Enter the following into the fields that appear:
   
   
   Name:
Google+

URL: https://plusone.google.com/_/+1/confirm?hl=en&url=http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/2nwaQ3FOiHs/how_to_share_google_reader_stories_to_google_plus.php

Icon URL: https://ssl.gstatic.com/s2/oz/images/favicon.ico






5. Click 'Save,' and Google+ will appear checked, with the nice icon next to it:
   
   

Now, when you go back to Google Reader and click on any article, you'll see Google+ in the 'Send to' drop-down menu at the bottom.






Clicking this will open a new window to add that article as a +snippet, which you can share with any circles or individuals you choose on Google Plus. That's it!






Not all blog posts will turn into nice +snippets, but that's up to the site from which you're sharing. Until Google creates some simple integration of these services, this method will have to do. Once it's set up, though, it's easy to share your Google Reader articles with your Plus-buddies.

Are you new to Google Plus? Check out Dan Rowinski's excellent introduction, How To Use Google Plus.

Thanks to How-To New for finding those share-to URLs.

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