Posts Tagged social bookmarking
WordPress Plugins, Widgets and Must-Dos
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, social media on April 27, 2009
Now that I have so many websites running on WordPress (I count 27, but I might be missing some), and have played around with so many plug-ins, widgets and features, I figured I’d write a little article all about my experience. Maybe it will save you a headache or two in your development.
This article does not tell you how to install WordPress, the basic setup, or how to choose a template. Maybe I’ll cover these topics another day.
WordPress is a good platform for both blogs, and “traditional” websites. Many of our websites just happen to run on WordPress so people may post comments and so forth. I only have a few “blogs”, per se. Just keep in mind that different uses require different options.
Akismet
This is a comment spam filter, and it is amazing (I recently discovered 1,009 spam messages on this blog that I was completely unaware of). The only reason not to install this is if you plan on always turning off user comments. It is standard, and well worth the “hassle” of signing up for an account at WordPress.com to make it work properly.
All in One SEO Pack
If you are a hardcore SEO guru, maybe this isn’t your bag. But if you are a novice at such matters like myself, then this little SEO tool makes the process tolerable. Hopefully 1,452,822 downloaders weren’t all wrong.
Google XML Sitemaps
Another bit of gospel from the search engines is that standard sitemaps are important. Who has the time to build these stupid things? Thankfully, this sitemap building plugin does it for you!
Submit Your Blog
I guess this is also something you should do for a bit of SEO juice, or just to be found better. Here’s a list of places you could submit to: Technorati, LoadedWeb, BlogCatalog, and, well … forget the list, there are a zillion other blog directories and aggregators out there!
WP-Polls
Want to add a poll to your WordPress post? Too easy with this little tool.
WordPress iPhone Application
If you have an iPhone and a WordPress blog, this tool is not to be missed. I could not imagine writing long blog entries on my phone, but certainly updates and short entries while on the go. This application requires XML-RPC to be enabled in Settings, Writing.
RSS and Social Bookmarking
There are many different ways to add this to your site. A link directly to your feed page with an RSS image, perhaps? Hook it up to FeedBurner so you can track subscriptions? One cool utility is AddThis.
Twitter Integration
I fell in love with Tweetmeme Button because it very cleanly adds a little Tweet Counter and Retweet option to every one of your posts. One drawback is that it doesn’t promote YOUR twitter account in it, it promotes theirs. But for the novelty and convenience factor, this is A1.
I use the nifty, simple TwitterCounter Badge in a few places.
Of course, you can insert your Twitter posts nicely into your blog with a little snippet of code on the sidebar.
A good old-fashioned graphic linked to your Twitter page is still a nice touch.
PHP Code Integration
Want to run PHP code from within WordPress? You could spend 6 hours trying out a bunch of plug-ins or work-arounds (like I did), or you could download Exec-PHP which works flawlessly, and with little effort.
Make Your Blog Talk
Completely non-essential, but hours of fun. The Odiogo Listen Button plugin brings your blog to life!
Adding Community Features like Google Friend Connect
WordPress has it’s own built-in community of sorts – through comments. Is this good enough? The jury is out. Then there is Google Friend Connect, Yahoo!’s MyBlogLog, and even Twitter Remote.
I’m kind of impressed with MyBlogLog, though I cannot seem to get it working perfectly yet. Imagine that: Yahoo doing something right!
There are actually dozens of these widgets and people aggregators out there, so be sure not to put too many on, and slow your website down to a crawl!
Note: if you use the Google Friend Connect bar along the bottom of your blog, be sure to have enough space in your footer so that content doesn’t get cut off (behind the bar).
Feedback
I’m keen to keep this article updated. Did you find anything useful? Do you have anything useful that should be added? Please comment!
Social Networking Primer – Social Bookmarking
Posted by Paul Holmes in social media on March 28, 2009
On February 4th, I commited to writing some of my experiences on Social Bookmarking.
At a lecture at the last AffiliateSummit in Las Vegas, I recall the speaker suggesting that people pick one social bookmarking site and stick to it. I decided to survey the landscape, and do just this.
I have to admit, though, as an entire branch of social media, I am generally disappointed.
Here’s what I set out looking for:
I wanted a social bookmarking service that would not only do all the cool social aspects, but also integrate easily into my browser and become a useful tool for my own day-to-day web surfing. This was clearly too much to ask for.
The main issue: I like folders. I organize bookmarks into folders. I see the value of tags, I honestly do – so give me both. Or at least give me “faux” folders (groups or lists) that I can easily access in a tree structure that’s based on tags. Isn’t this obvious?
Now some people might laugh at me and accuse me of living in 2002. That’s OK, because I think I’m with most of the rest of the world on this (at least, for now).
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Anyway, here’s the synopsis of my research:
Diigo – This is my chosen “one”. You can sort your bookmarks into “lists” – something like “faux” folders. Unfortunately, accessing them from the “Diigo” menu in Firefox (when the plug-in is installed) still takes 6 clicks, and if you want a list with more than a screenful of options, you have to switch to the web interface, adding yet more clicks. (Regular bookmarks take 2 clicks.) It also allows private and public bookmarks. While imperfect, Diigo is easily the best of the worst in terms of usability. (Diigo took over Furl, one of the pioneers.)
ma.gnolia.com – He dead.
delicious – Do not install the delicious toolbar – it literally takes over FireFox! This could be a good thing if it did it well, but it does not. Furthermore, delicious can’t seem to stay logged in for me. Every time I want to delicious an article, it turns into a 13 step process and I typically abandon my efforts in frustration.
StumbleUpon – These guys have clearly taken the “social” aspect to the extreme and done a great job. For a schmo like me who’s looking for something that’s actually useful for my day-to-day life, as well, though – they don’t do the trick.
digg – digg does the social part well, and is used by lots of people, so has some critical mass going for it. Otherwise, I’m disappointed on almost every angle. Browser integration is essentially non-existent (the toolbar is a waste of valuable screen space, in my opinion). It does not allow multi-word tags on bookmarks (at least, not obviously). Profiles are extremely limited. And support tells me my account accidentally got deleted (the good news is that support responds to e-mails). Cool logo, though (reminds me of the Doozers from Fraggle Rock).
There are others much like digg: Simpy, Faves and reddit – they do the social aggregation part well, but don’t try to be much else.
In this “social news” category, I think newsvine has an interesting platform. I might play with it a bit more when I’m bored.
Conclusion: If the best “social media” aspects were combined with some good old fashioned integration, convenience and usability, this would be my social bookmarking application of choice. First company to do this, let me know. In the interim, I’ll mostly be using my “Bookmarks” menu in FireFox and watching the social bookmarking world pass me by.
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