I usually spend most of my time on the internet going through my RSS feeds on Google Reader. Reader has a great feature called Send to at the bottom of each post which allows you to send the current article to a list of predefined sites or you can define custom sites to send the article to.

The included list of predefined sites offers plenty of options, but it is missing entries for Readability.com. I’ve used Twitter, Tumblr and Posterous before, but lately I find myself only using Readability since I’m able to send the article to my Kindle.

In order to add the entries just click on “create custom link” and fill in the box with the following and click Save when done. I created two links, one for Read Later and the other for Read Now. You can add both or just the Read Later.

Read Now

Name: Readability (READ NOW)
URL: http://www.readability.com/read?url=${url}
Icon URL: http://www.readability.com/media/images/favicon.ico

Read Later

Name: Readability (READ LATER)
URL: http://www.readability.com/save?url=${url}
Icon URL: http://www.readability.com/media/images/favicon.ico

Here is what it should look like.

The READ NOW and READ LATER entries will open a new window/tab which will require an extra step to either activate the reader mode or save it for later.

First, lets take a look at READ NOW. Once the new window/tab opens you will see the original article with a toolbar at the top with the option to switch to “Readability View”. I contacted the Readability Team about this behavior and was told the following (which seem fair):

The reason we show the page first and have you click through to the Readability view is that we don’t want to deprive the publisher of any page views. We’re not looking to infringe on anyone’s copyrights or step on any toes, so we figure that showing you the page as is first is the best way to go. We are sorry if this is an inconvenience.

If you have any more questions or comments, just let us know.

Thanks,

The Readability Team

I would like to thank “The Readability Team” for their quick response to my question.

Next, lets take a look at READ LATER. Selecting this entry will open a new window/tab and will ask you to confirm adding the article. Once you confirm by selecting “Yes, save to my Reading List” it will redirect to the original article.