Elgan: How I publish from Google+

Computerworld - Technology broadcaster Leo Laporte had me on his show, This Week in Tech (TWiT), recently. I mentioned that I publish all over the Internet automatically from my Google+ stream.

I said, for example, that I publish both a daily and a weekly email newsletter without doing anything. It just happens. Everything I write on Google+ is automatically posted on Twitter and Facebook, and it's made available as an RSS feed.

This is part of the appeal of Google+. It's the only service I'm aware of where you can do just about everything -- publish, chat, email and blog. You can even use it as a social network.

Since I mentioned my system on TWiT, I've been flooded with inquiries from people who want to know how to do it, starting with the other two guests on the show. So I decided to explain in detail how I do all this.

Generate an RSS feed from Google+

Google itself does not generate RSS feeds from public posts, for some reason. But independent services do.

The best one that I'm aware of is called Pluss Feed Proxy for Google+. To use it, visit the site and click "Login with Google." It will give you a URL for your RSS feed.

But wait! We're not done yet. I believe the RSS feeds generated by this and other such services work in most RSS readers, but not all services that use RSS do other things, such as posting on other social sites.

That's why I recommend "laundering" the RSS feed through FeedBurner.

FeedBurner is an old feed management service owned by Google. It does a lot of useful things, but for our purposes, its main benefit is to take a poorly supported RSS feed and transform it into a widely supported one.

To use it, go to the service and set up an account. Sign in with your Google password if you're not already signed in.

Paste your Pluss feed RSS URL into the "Burn a feed right this instant" box and click "Next," then "Next" again.

Copy the URL that FeedBurner gives you; that's the URL for your Google+ feed, which you can use on any site that supports RSS.

You can offer your RSS feed to readers and followers, in case they prefer to get your posts that way.

Here's what my FeedBurner RSS feed looks like.

Post on Twitter from Google+

It's easy to have everything you post on Google+ also post to Twitter. There are many services that do this, but the best one I've found is called ManageFlitter.

First, open Google+ and go to your profile. The URL should be http://plus.google.com/ followed by a long number, then /posts. That's your unique profile URL. Select and copy it.

Go to the ManageFlitter home page and click "Start." Click "Connect to Twitter." Select the "Dashboard" tab, then click "Turn on/off Google+ sharing." Paste in the URL you copied a moment ago, then click "Start Sharing."

That's it! From now on, everything you post on Google+ will be tweeted on Twitter, with a link back to the Google+ post.

Here's what my Twitter feed looks like.

Post on Facebook from Google+

There are many ways to auto-post on Facebook. None of them is perfect. Some don't post links. Others don't post pictures. Still others do both, but are flaky and unreliable.

Personally, I choose a reliable method that posts links back to the original Google+ post, but which unfortunately does not convey pictures.