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Google Reader Play is a cool new toy from Google Labs that will play a slideshow of web articles. It will keep track of your Google Reader Recommended Items and will find similar interests of what you and others you’re following have shared.

Google Reader Play

If you haven’t tried out Google Reader Play yet, head over to the website (link below)…log in and click Get started.

It runs in your browser and offers features such as slideshow, clicking on individual screenshots from an article, full screen mode, star or mark articles to read later…and more.

If a video comes up in one of the articles you’re reading, you can play it directly in Google Reader Play.

You can show or hide the thumbnail viewer and easily scroll through the articles. 

Google Reader Play on Windows 7 Media Center

While Google Reader Play is cool enough on it’s own, we want to add it to Windows 7 Media Center. We can do this by installing the GoogleReader MCE plug-in. Download the file, make sure you’re closed out of WMC, and install it like normal accepting the defaults.

After installation is complete, open WMC and select the Extras Library from the main menu. Then click the icon for Google Reader Player.

You will get a message saying the site isn’t designed for WMC check Don’t ask me this again and click on the View Now button.

Click on the Get Started button.

Now you can go through and view Google Reader Play just as you would in a browser but now it’s in WMC…cool. You’ll need to sign in to see content you’re interested in. Click the Sign In link at the lower right corner of the screen.

A message will pop up about viewing the page over a secure connection. Check Don’t ask me this again and click Continue.

You’ll be brought to the Google site to log in…

Now you can use Google Reader Play just as you would in a web browser.

There are some known issues that the developer has listed on their page. Just remember it’s a plug-in still in development so you might experience some quirks.

If you’re a fan of Google Reader Play for getting updates on items of interest, adding the feature to Windows 7 Media Center is a cool way to view it from the comfort of your couch.

Download  Google Reader MCE - http://adf.ly/BlfIB