Blogger Tip: Related Content Module

I mentioned in 18 Ways for Blogger to Beef Up that Blogger should support related content sharing in blog sidebars via feed headline publishing. Google seems to realize that this is a good idea -- but its two attempts to provide something similar have so far fallen short (Google Reader publisher module doesn't let you customize appearance much and Related Links doesn't let publishers control content). Google is still working on a successful, combined product, so I've suggested a quick solution for bloggers' related content: Google Reader shared feeds + Feedo Style feed publisher modules.

Make Your Own Related Content Module



1. Create a customized feed in Google Reader
Use Google Reader's labels and stars to create your own stream of news articles that focus on your information niche. Make the feeds under that label public as a single shareable feed URL. (You can also skip this step and just select the URL for your own blog's feed to share as a stream as I've done above.)

2. Create a customized feed headline box in Feedo Style
Paste your customized feed URL into Feedo Style's generator, customize the look and feel of the widget, then paste the provided code into your site. The result is a blendable news stream that instantly updates with the latest news from the specified feed. Note how this is much more nicely integrated into site design than the Feedburner headline generator, for instance, and much more easily added than currently available RSS-to-website scripts. Again, we're using a 3rd party tool here since Google Reader's publisher slaps everything with "Read in Google Reader" and doesn't let you change the style much. Feedo Style is friendlier to all varieties of newsreaders and CSS styles.

(After you're done making your blog's related content stream, check out the nifty scrolling headline module for Google.com/ig from Feedo Style.)