Quick Start Guide

Welcome to Crowdynews! This guide will help you get started with creating your first topic, managing content, and embedding widgets on your website.

Overview

Crowdynews follows a simple three-step workflow:

1. Create Topics

Set up content sources and filtering rules

2. Manage Queues

Curate and organize your aggregated content

3. Create Widgets

Build embeddable components for your website

Your First Topic

1. Access the Dashboard

   Log into your Crowdynews account: https://app.crowdynews.com

   

2. Create a New Topic

   Navigate to Topics menu and click the “Create New” button. Give your topic a name and an optional description.

   

3. Configure Content Sources (Optional)

   Add your content sources by selecting from:

   • YouTube: User/channel name, channel ID, keyword or playlist ID
   • RSS Feeds: Blog feeds, news sites, or other RSS sources
   • Twitter: User handles
   • Instagram: User handles

   

   Note

   You can optionally configure filters and whitelists to automatically curate your content, but for the purposes of this guide, we’ll skip this step. You can see the details in Topics Guide.

4. Save Your Topic

   Review your configuration and save the topic. Crowdynews will start aggregating content immediately, but it can take up to 5 minutes to start showing up in your queue. You can always edit your topic later to add/remove sources and filters.

Managing Your Queue

Once your topic is created, you can manage the aggregated content in the queue:

1. Access the Queue

   Navigate to your topic by clicking on the topic name in the topics list and click “To Queue” to see all aggregated content.

   

   Note

   You can also click the “Queue” button on the side navigation to see all queues corresponding to your topics. Clicking on a queue will show you the aggregated content in that queue.

2. Manual Curation (Optional)

   For each feed item, you can:

   • Show/Hide: Control visibility in widgets and the API
   • Pin Items: Pin up to 10 important items. Pinned items will always appear first in your widgets and the API.
   • Reorder: Drag and drop pinned items to change their order.

   

   

   Tip

   Pinned items always appear first in your widgets, with the configured order in the queue making them perfect for highlighting important or featured content!

Creating Your First Widget

1. Navigate to Widgets

   Go to the Widgets section from the main menu.

   

2. Create New Widget

   Click “Create New”, give your widget a name and choose your widget type:

   • Vertical: Stacked layout for sidebars
   • Horizontal: Row layout for headers/footers
   • Full Page: Complete page layout
   • YouTube Specific: Video-optimized display

   

3. Attach Topics

   Click on the “Topics” tab and select one or more topics to include in your widget. Content will be aggregated from all selected topics. You can select multiple topics to create a widget that shows content from multiple topics.

   

4. Get Your Embed Code

   Save the widget and open it by clicking on the widget name in the widgets list. Copy the generated JavaScript snippet and paste it into your website’s HTML.

   

Embedding Widgets

Add the widget to any HTML page:

<!-- Basic embed example -->
<div data-crowdynews-widget='YOUR_WIDGET_ID'>
    <script
      src='//widget.crowdynews.com/YOUR_WIDGET_ID.js'
      async='true'
    ></script>
</div>

Note

The widget will automatically load and display your curated content. The JavaScript snippet handles all the heavy lifting!

Using the JSON API

For custom integrations, you can access your topic data directly via JSON API:

1. Get API URL

   Go to a specific topic by clicking on the topic name in the topics list and copy the API URL.

   

2. Make API Calls

   fetch('https://q.crowdynews.com/v1/content/YOUR_PROJECT_ID?q=YOUR_TOPIC_ID')
     .then(response => response.json())
     .then(data => {
       // Use your aggregated content
       console.log(data);
     });

Next Steps

Deep Dive into Topics

Learn advanced topic configuration and filtering strategies.

Topics Guide →

Master Queue Management

Discover advanced curation techniques and workflow optimization.

Queue Guide →

Widget Customization

Explore widget styling options and advanced embedding techniques.

Widget Guide →

API Integration

Build custom integrations using the Crowdynews REST API.

API Reference →

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Having trouble? Check out our detailed user guides or API documentation for more comprehensive information.