[note: this document assumes that you are running feedly 2.x.168 or higher]
Feedly is working on a new concept called “embeddable feedly mixes” which allows power users/bloggers/media companies to bundle, curate and embed a set of feeds in their own web pages or Ning Social Networks. See mikiane.com as “the concept car” for this initiative:
A Sample Feedly Magazine Widget
Behind the scenes
Here is a quick overview of how the system works behind the scenes
Feedly Mix Framework
In the rest of this document, we will see what it takes to design, embed and maintain a magazine widget.
Selecting a set of feeds
The first step in creating a magazine widget is to create a category[1] in your feedly and add to that category the feeds whose articles you would like to include in the mix. You can include as many sources as you want. Optionally, you can mark some of the sources you like the best as favorite.[1] tips for creating a new category:
1. go to the dashboard http://www.feedly.com/home#dashboard
2. pick on of the feeds you want to add to the new category and start dragging it. As you start the drag action, a new blue pannel should show up with the list of existing categories as well as a “Create new category”. Drop you feed in the “Create New Category” and a dialog will ask you for the name of the category you want to create (keep the name of the category simple – no space, no special characters – the name will not be visible to end users)
Beyond the articles included in that category, all the articles you manually share in feedly/google reader or tweet in feedly will also be included in the mix (even if they do not belong to the specified category).
Creating and embedding the widget
Once you have created and populated a category, creating a widget is simple. All you have to do is click on the embed action at the top of the page.
Generating a Feedly Widget
Here is the HTML code for embedding a feedly widget to a web page:
<iframe scrolling="no" height="900" frameborder="no" align="center" width="990"
name="feedlyWidget" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0"
src="{{{replace with your mix URL}}}" noresize="true"
noborder="true">
Adding the Ning Widget to your Ning Social Network:1. visit your Ning Network "Add an Application Page":
http://{{{your ning network}}}.ning.com/opensocial/ningapps/addByUrl
2. enter Ning App URL
http://www.feedly.com/mix/{{{user id}}}/{{{category}}}
3. click on "Add Ning App"
Note: part of the process of publishing a widget is to make the associated category public in feedly and Google Reader.Note: the first time you publish the widget, it might take up to 5 minutes for the first mix to be generated
Curation/Filtering
Once a mix has been created, feedly will automatically collect the necessary articles, filter them and provision the mix. This is a continuous process which happens behind the scene – the content of the mixes are refreshed every 10-15 minutes (or a couple of minutes after the owner performs manual recommendations).Here is a high level overview of the mix filtering rules:
- Any content the owner of the mix, manually share or tweet will have precedence on all other content for 36 hours
- If there are not enough manually shared or tweeted article, feedly will use freshness and number of recommendations by the feedly+google reader community as the criteria to pick the best articles from the sources defined in the category and complete the mix.
- If there are not recommendations by the feedly+google reader communities, feedly will use freshness and favorite status of the source to filter the best articles and complete the mix.
- Articles which are manually hidden/buried in feedly will not be included in the mix.
Annotations
If the owner manual shares an article with a note or tweet the article from feedly, the generated note will also be included in the mix/displayed in yellow as part of the magazine widget.
Example of annotated article in the mix
Weekend Edition
On week ends, the curation rules automatically adapt to pick the best articles shared/published over the last 7 days, offering visitors a more comprehensive “Weekend edition” selection.Roadmap
- Ability to include only shared items which belong to the published category (important if you want to publish multiple mixes)
- Ability to change color schemes (important for users embedding the mix into pages with a dark skin)
- Ability to publish shared items only
- Ability to configure the freshness factor in the filtering rules to 24, 36, 48, 96 or 144 hours
- Ability to pick a picture when an article is shared using feedly mini (Justyn Howard)
- Let mix reader tweet articles they find interesting
- Real-time friendfeed-like comment/conversation
- IPhone support
Change Log
- 2.x.168 works around a Ning encoding error by changing the URL of the ning gadget to the http://www.feedly.com/mix/{{{user id}}}/{{{category}}} format (Dec 2nd, 2009)
