Explore Your Interactions with Google Reader

Monday, March 17, 2008

Explore Your Interactions with Google Reader

Web applications track many user actions and use them for different purposes: improving the products, finding patterns, building user profiles etc. For example, Google Reader records some of your actions without providing options in the interface to access the data. Here are some addresses where you can find historical data about the items you've subscribed to (click on "View all items" to see all the posts).

* All the posts you've emailed to your contacts:
http://www.google.com/reader/view/user/-/state/com.google/tracking-emailed

* All the posts you have marked as unread at some point (to keep a post unread, you need to uncheck "Mark as read" from the options bar; note that "Mark all as unread" will not maintain this state):
http://www.google.com/reader/view/user/-/state/com.google/tracking-kept-unread

* All the posts you have marked as unread and are still unread (Google Reader calls them "saved items"):
http://www.google.com/reader/view/user/-/state/com.google/kept-unread

* Did you click on a post's main link to go to the original location? You'll find it here:
http://www.google.com/reader/view/user/-/state/com.google/tracking-item-link-used

* Did you click on a link from a post's content? The post should be included in this list:
http://www.google.com/reader/view/user/-/state/com.google/tracking-body-link-used

* If you use the list view, you can find the list of posts you've actually read (or at least you have clicked on the title):
http://www.google.com/reader/view/user/-/state/com.google/read

* Are Google's recommended feeds interesting? Check the list of recommended feeds you've subscribed to:
http://www.google.com/reader/view/user/-/state/com.google/recommendations-subscribed

* Did you accidentally dismiss a recommended feed? You'll find it here:
http://www.google.com/reader/view/user/-/state/com.google/recommendations-dismissed

Labels: Google Reader

27 comments ( Post a comment )

Tim Broder said on March 17, 2008 8:58 AM PDT:

Very Nice. I'll have to add these links to a list of "API Links" for Google reader that I've compiled here

Thanks

Peter said on March 17, 2008 9:50 AM PDT:

Wow, great find !

I wasn´t able to subscribe to these feeds though; but i found that once the links are tweaked a bit you can subscribe to them.

If you substite this part of your links:

user/-/state/com.google/tracking-kept-unread#stream/

...with this part:

feed/http://google.com/reader/atom

...the when you clivk the links the results atre the same; but you can subscribe to them now as well.

Cheers,
Peter

Ionut Alex Chitu said on March 17, 2008 9:53 AM PDT:

Or you can copy the feed's URL and paste it in the "Add subscription" box.

Peter said on March 17, 2008 10:00 AM PDT:

...with the original links that didn´t work for me...

Ionut Alex Chitu said on March 17, 2008 10:26 AM PDT:

I see. These links work, but you need to replace "-" from the URL with your user ID. How to find this ID? Go to Google Reader and type in the address bar:

javascript:prompt("User ID", _USER_ID);void(0);

Jean-Noël Anderruthy said on March 17, 2008 11:13 AM PDT:

This is a good doc at this address : http://code.google.com/p/pyrfeed/wiki/GoogleReaderAPI

gxg said on March 17, 2008 12:52 PM PDT:

Great post!
It's a shame that the Reader doesn't integrate these informations in the UI, for example in the Trends page.

cake said on March 17, 2008 2:29 PM PDT:

why the hell would they need these information ?

i find myself intruded in my privacy.

Utopiah said on March 17, 2008 6:18 PM PDT:

Great job, now someone should share the GreaseMonkey script to automatically add buttons for that

(I can't, my keyboard is broken ;)

Anonymous said on March 17, 2008 7:34 PM PDT:

isn't this article just a excerpt of the one Jean-Noël Anderruthy provides? ionut you should really add a link to the source.

Ionut Alex Chitu said on March 18, 2008 2:24 AM PDT:

The source is Google Reader's JavaScript code, more exactly this file:

http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3265599920-en-scroll.js?hl=en

I was trying to see if there's way to make Google Reader's reading list public and found a lot of other state values, including "skimmed" and those mentioned in the post.

Dileep N K said on March 18, 2008 11:04 AM PDT:

Alex, This is one of the best posts by you ever! Keep up the good work! Thank you for the useful content.

Michael said on March 20, 2008 6:24 AM PDT:

The one that lets you see what items you've clicked on has been incredibly useful at helping me find out what RSS feeds I don't get anything interesting from.

Steve said on May 5, 2008 3:52 PM PDT:

Alex,

Have you noticed the odd way that Reader treats these feeds?

I added them by adding my User ID in the URLs you provided, then pasting them in the Add subscription box.

When you look at the feeds, they are missing the Feed settings... drop down, as well as the new items and all items links.

If you view them by pasting the URL after the standard feed viewing URL (http://www.google.com/reader/view/#stream/feed%2F...), you'll get the "You are not subscribed..." message and the Subscribe link, even though you are subscribed.

Do you have any insight on what might be going on here?

Anonymous said on June 13, 2008 8:11 AM PDT:

Fascinating!

Shel

IP said on August 7, 2008 3:23 AM PDT:

Good thanks for info but not able to see contents in above links

Martin Masik said on November 23, 2008 1:46 AM PDT:

I have copied and feed's URL and paste it in the "Add subscription" box. and it worked .thanks

Polaski said on November 23, 2008 1:49 AM PDT:

Well some of the information needed is kind of intruding your privacy. isn't it?

Arun Kumar said on November 23, 2008 1:51 AM PDT:

The original link sometimes doesn't work. to solve that problem you can use the process described by Peter in the initial posts. that really worked for me.. hope it works for you...

sesli sohbet said on February 28, 2009 4:17 AM PDT:

I wasn´t able to subscribe to these feeds though; but i found that once the links are tweaked a bit you can subscribe to them...

liseli said on February 28, 2009 4:17 AM PDT:

Or you can copy the feed's URL and paste it in the "Add subscription" box...

iozoo said on March 4, 2009 9:02 AM PDT:

I have to agree with some people that are refering that some of the infos are intruding your privacy.

add-site-url said on March 5, 2009 8:45 AM PDT:

I dont think that any info over here is intruding any policy.

Project said on March 5, 2009 8:47 AM PDT:

I have never been successful with all these feed things. don't know whats its purpose.

Aparna said on March 13, 2009 11:41 PM PDT:

Thanks for this great post.
I have add this post on my bookmarks websites so I can access it future.

RaadDir said on April 3, 2009 11:44 AM PDT:

Thats why I love Gmail!!

Mike said on April 23, 2009 2:47 AM PDT:

Thanks Alex this one too is best as you have all other posts of yours. I love reading your posts and this one is awesome and great too.

What do you think?