UPDATE (October 2012): This post has been updated. It seems the way I advocated is no longer possible. There is a workaround using Twitter’s api, but so far it’s working 50-50 for me. Frankly, I can’t figure out why Twitter makes it so difficult.
It’s easy! So easy, that I had been using a more complicated system so that, each time I wanted to use it, I’d google “Find RSS feed for Twitter” and use a complex URL. (This is because Twitter had removed the RSS button from its site, but since I rarely go there, I’d rather have GR make it easy for me.)
But while writing this post, I checked my work and found that Google Reader has an easier way. It’s so easy that this image should tell you everything you need to know:
Ron Hogan's worth following. So am I, at @Bill_Peschel, but if you're here you know that already, right?
But since I’ve already gone this far, I might as well type it out so maybe the search engines will find it:
1. First, you need the name of the Twitter account. That’s the name next to the “@” sign. For example, mine is @Bill_Peschel.
2. Next, open Google Reader. Click on the big red “SUBSCRIBE” button and paste in this. At the end, type in the Twitter handle without the “@” sign:
https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=Bill_Peschel
How to create a Twitter RSS feed for searches
So long as I’m here, I might as well offer a way to create an RSS feed for your favorite searches.
Suppose there’s an author you like, say, Neil Gaiman, and you want to see what other people are saying about him (instead of subscribing to his Twitter feed, @NeilHimself)
Click on the SUBSCRIBE button and type this in:
http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=Neil%20Gaiman
The “%20″ thingie is the HTML code for a space.
Which, by doing that, I found this acidic reaction:
Which linked to Neil Gaiman’s post, “How to Seduce a Writer”.
I thought it was rather charming, myself, and undeserving of the reaction.
Far be it for me to defend NG, so I’ll just quote Sgt. Hulka from “Stripes”
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