Note in Reader without a "Note in Reader" button?

March 4, 2012 10:36 AM

Has anyone come up with a good replacement for Google Reader's (now-defunct) "Note in Reader" feature? "Sharing to G+" is NOT THE SAME, and emailing articles is annoying compared to the ease of pressing one tiny little button.

My boyfriend and I used to use Google Reader's "Note in Reader" feature all the time to share things with each other online - it was great because once we were subscribed to each other's feeds, we just had to click a button and anything we 'noted' would automatically be added to the other person's feed.

Google nixed that feature to get people to use G+ for sharing instead, and we have dutifully joined Google+, followed each other, and each set up a circle that consists of just the other person. But now to share an item from Google Reader, I have to:

- Click the little G+ share button
- Get rid of the "Public" share default and replace it with the special one-person circle.
- Tell him I've shared something and that he has to go to Google+ to see it.
- Ask him a week later if he's read the article, find out he forgot to check G+, and then just email him a link instead.

Same procedure if he wants to share with me. And emailing isn't great either, because "checking email" mode is not the same as "reading articles" mode - when he sends me something via email, I usually think "oh, I should read that later," but I don't always remember. It was SO MUCH simpler when he could just add something to my feed so that I could read it when I was already in "reading articles" mode.

I finally had the bright idea this morning that we could each subscribe to an RSS feed of the other persons' G+ posts, but some quick research suggests that Google is actively trying to prevent people from doing this (all the posts I could find linking to solutions led to 404 pages).

I love Google Reader, but I really miss this functionality. Does anyone use an alternate RSS service that would bring it back? Or, is there a third party site that would allow us to both add items with one click AND subscribe to an RSS feed of articles? (Techy solutions are okay too, and if I can't find something existing I'll just make my own.)

posted by ella wren to Technology (9 answers total)

In Google Reader, there's the G+ Share button. When that comes up, instead of sharing to a circle, type in his email address. It'll add to his G+ notifications (the red number at the top-right) which he can see from Reader.

Would that work?
posted by VoteBrian at 10:48 AM on March 4, 2012

That is definitely an improvement - we just tried it and the article shows up in his notifications instead of just in the main feed, so he's more likely to see it.

But this still requires that he log in to Google+ to see the item, and what I'd really like is a way to bypass that. We both use Reader daily but G+ only occasionally.
posted by ella wren at 11:03 AM on March 4, 2012

My husband and I used that Google Reader feature the same way you did, and we've since replaced it with this Greasemonkey script - which is not perfect, but it's OK. It only works for sharing things that show up in your Google Reader, not other stuff you find outside of feeds you subscribe to. Also, there's no way to make comments about what you're sharing.
posted by illenion at 11:50 AM on March 4, 2012

In Reader settings you can choose where you'd like to be able to "Send To". Choose Tumblr, Get a shared Tumblr blog. At the bottom of each reader post now will be a "Send To" button with one option, Tumblr.

Now both subscribe to your Tumblr's RSS feed within Reader. (your shared Tumblr URL with "/rss" appended.)

Clunky to set up but should do what you want with minimal fuss once done!
posted by merocet at 12:01 PM on March 4, 2012

(If you want separate feeds then do what I said before but set up 2 Tumblr's and each subscribe to the others at the last step)
posted by merocet at 12:06 PM on March 4, 2012

We had the same problem and have each signed up for Delicious, where we mark interesting links as private, and subscribe to each other's Delicious RSS feeds. It's not as great as the share option, but it's an adequate replacement.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 12:48 PM on March 4, 2012

Oh, and the 'Send to' option now populates with Delicious for us, so it works whether we're in non-RSS cruising the web mode or consuming RSS mode.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 12:49 PM on March 4, 2012

The Greasemonkey script looked really promising, but we just played around with it a bit and it doesn't seem to work consistently - we each got one test item to show up in the other's feed, but nothing after that. (The problem might very well be us though.)

So we just did the Tumblr thing and it seems to be working well. There's even a bookmarklet for stuff from elsewhere on the web. So easy!
posted by ella wren at 5:06 PM on March 4, 2012

you should just use reader2000.com. Todd (who builds it) is adding features as we request them, and it's arguably better than the social dimensions of google reader.
posted by billtron at 7:07 PM on June 6, 2012