Last week,
Facebook launched a new registration tool
for site owners. With this, users can quickly sign up for new sites with their
Facebook profiles. The tool goes beyond the simple log-in feature of Facebook
Connect, and lets users more easily fill out forms based on the information that
they've already shared with Facebook (such as email address, name, birthday,
phone number, etc.)
WebProNews and the
iEntry Network have launched
a new
WordPress plugin utilizing this tool. With
WordPress being the most popular blogging platform, and Facebook being the most
popular social network, we think a lot of people will be interested.
"Registration is an integral part of any web presence," says Mike Marr, who
developed the plugin. "It puts a name to our virtual guests - an otherwise very
difficult task."
"Facebook's Registration Tool gives developers a familiar face from which users
are encouraged to register, all the while streamlining the process for the vast
number of existing Facebook users," he adds. "It makes sense that you would want
this tool as a part of any website, including those powered by WordPress. Thus,
we simply put the pieces of the puzzle together, and want to share with the
community what we've come up with."
As Facebook's Paul Tarjan explained when the company launched its tool, it can
minimize the friction associated with signing up for a new account.
That means a possible increase in
conversions.
Install the plugin from your WordPress back-end, or download it from WordPress
here. To activate it, use the "plugins"
menu option in your admin control panel. You'll see a "Facebook Registration"
options page under settings. Just enter your Facebook App ID and App Secret
here.
The WordPress plugin requires WordPress version 3.0 or higher. Of course we
would love feedback on the plugin, so if you have any comments or questions, or
have issues with it, email developer Mike Marr at
marr@beyondwp.com.
More info about the plugin can be found at
BeyondWP.com.
Wordpress has announced the launch of
WordPress.com Text Messaging. Users can
text 77377 (PRESS) to manage their blogs using SMS messages.
There are free
features as well as upgrade features
available. For free, users can receive text notifications when users are added
or removed, when the theme changes, and/or when the privacy settings change.
With the Text Messaging Upgrade, users can protect their blog by using a
two-step login process, and a text message will be sent to their phone upon
login with a passcode that must be entered in order to access the Dashboard.
With the upgrade, users can also get notified of new comments and moderate them
with a text reply, as well as send a reply to comments they receive. Finally,
users can send a text for a new post to be added to the blog instantly.
The new text features are only available in the U.S. at this point. Standard
text message and data rates apply, of course.
The upgrade costs $20 a year. It can be accessed from the Dashboard.
I can't imagine blogging through SMS being very fun, but it could come in handy
if something comes up, and you don't have access to a computer, but you need to
blog about it. The other features should be quite useful.
Internet Explorer 9 (beta) was
launched to the public this week, and
it's gotten a lot of buzz and high marks. It's also gotten a lot of web
properties doing things to utilize its features. Microsoft's own
Bing features are certainly
interesting.
WordPress is utilizing the browser's functionality for both bloggers and blog
readers, so its new features should have pretty far reaching impact, within the
space of IE9 users.
WordPress is taking advantage of the pinning feature of the browser,
specifically, with different feature sets for readers and bloggers. Joy Victory
explains on the WordPress Blog:
When you sign in to your blog, you can
pin your own site and get extra tasks that make blogging easier and faster. A
logged-in user can quickly access links to their dashboard to write a new post,
moderate comments, upload a new file, or view blog statistics. (Each task only
appears if the user has that task’s capability, such as site administrator’s.) A
custom list also displays up to 5 latest posts for the current blog context.
You can pin someone else’s blog, too.
When you do, an icon appears that lets you subscribe to the blog feed, signup
for a free blog, read Freshly Pressed, and access WordPress.com Support and
forums.
To take advantage of the WordPress pinning capabilities, users simply need to drag the tab onto the taskbar. It will either display as a large WordPress logo or if you're a blogger, your "Blavatar" if you've uploaded one.
There's been a lot going on in web news over the last few days, and there have
been some things worth looking at that I haven't gotten a chance to cover, but
I'd like to point out just in case you missed them.
Wordpress
introduced a new subscriptions feature.
"Let's say you're reading a blog on WordPress.com that you really enjoy — so
much so you want to be notified when new posts are published so you remember to
read them," Wordpress explains. "You can subscribe to this blog really easily by
using the 'Subscribe' menu in the admin bar. By going up to your admin bar, and
clicking 'Subscribe to blog', you’ll be instantly subscribed and all current and
future posts will be added to the subscriptions tab on your WordPress.com home
screen."
Facebook added a new ad impressions counter. As PaidContent's David Kaplan
writes, this social metric will show
benefits of ads that include social context from people's friends on Facebook.
Seesmic released a
new version of Seesmic Desktop. "The
inspiration to build SD2 came from the understanding that our users desired
support of many different social services, more than just Twitter, Facebook and
Linkedin," a representative for Seesmic told us. "And so, SD2 was born. With
the plugin architecture in SD2, you can easily add, remove and customize the
platform to include only the services that matter to you."
Netflix streaming is now available for Panazonic VIERA Cast HDTVs and Blu-Ray
players. CrunchGear has
more on this.
Opera and Netrange MMH revealed a new way for device manufacturers to give
consumers a wide variety of content on their connected TVs - a space that it is
obviously getting more competitive by the day. They will deliver the Opera
Devices SDK and a pre-qualified suite of web-based TV content to be deployed on
TV platforms supporting HbbTV and other pan-European initiatives. More on this
here.
Intel
released an iGoogle gadget for MESH
power management information.
IBM has partnered with the Industrial Design Centre at the Indian Institute of
Technology, Bombay on
mobile web research. The initiative will
focus on development of new designs of mobile device interfaces that can be used
by people who are semiliterate or illiterate, as well as individuals who have
limited or no access to information technology.
Google appears to have somewhat given up on Wave, at least as a standalone
product. The company
posts to the Official Google Blog:
We were equally jazzed about Google
Wave internally, even though we weren’t quite sure how users would respond to
this radically different kind of communication. The use cases we’ve seen show
the power of this technology: sharing images and other media in real time;
improving spell-checking by understanding not just an individual word, but also
the context of each word; and enabling third-party developers to build new tools
like consumer gadgets for travel, or robots to check code.
But despite these wins, and numerous
loyal fans, Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t
plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain
the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use
in other Google projects. The central parts of the code, as well as the
protocols that have driven many of Wave’s innovations, like drag-and-drop and
character-by-character live typing, are already available as open source, so
customers and partners can continue the innovation we began. In addition, we
will work on tools so that users can easily “liberate” their content from Wave.
Nielsen
reports that the mobile Internet is more
popular in China that it is in the U.S. "Widespread ownership of mobiles is only
a fairly recent development in China, but consumers there have fully embraced
the technology and in some ways are using it more robustly than their American
and European counterparts," says Shan Phillips, Vice President, Greater China,
Telecom Practice, The Nielsen Company.
Nielsen also has another interesting
report looking at who is buying the iPad,
and asking if they will also buy an iPhone.
Wordpress has
introduced its own "like" buttons. Now
readers can "like" posts, although I'd say for publishers, the Facebook "like"
buttons will be a lot more effective for driving traffic. Still, it's nice to
provide as many gateways for engagement as possible (without getting too
cluttered, anyway).
According to the Financial Times,
Motorola and Verizon have teamed up on a "TV Tablet." This is a device with a
10-inch screen that users will be able to watch television on.
Reuters
reports that Sharp intends to launch a
3D smartphone this year. This would feature a 3D panel that can be viewed
without special glasses and would have a 3D capable camera.
According to
Unwired Review, Samsung is considering
puting touchscreen functionality on the back of a tablet. This is based on a
patent application for a "mobile terminal having dual touch screen and method of
controlling content therein".
Meanwhile, as Engadget
writes, Microsoft has been teasing an
as-of-yet unannounced product via Twitter, saying, ""Don't be so touchy...flat
is where it's at," and offering a small partial image of some object. This may
or may not be a trackpad.
Wordpress has just introduced a new feature that lets you update your blog by
calling a phone number speaking. Wordpress users can go to the My Blogs tab,
enable "Post by Voice" and get a special phone number to call for their blogs.
Calling the number and recording a message will post an audio file to the blog,
which can then be published to Facebook, Twitter, etc. with the Publicize
feature.
"It's happened to all of us," writes WordPress founding developer Matt Mullenweg,
introducing the feature. "The night starts off innocently enough with a little
gin and tonic, maybe a mojito, then next thing you know you’re doing tequila
shots with the bartender and the girl from Brazil and you find yourself thinking
it would be a treMENdous idea to call up your ex and see how they’re doing and
perhaps impress them with your newfound wit."
"We've got the cure," he continues. "Now, instead of drunk dialing random
friends, lovers, and acquaintances one at a time, what if you could dial your
blog and talk to the whole world at once? It’d be like something out of Star
Trek."
All joking aside, the feature has huge potential for quick and lazy blog
posting. Got something to say, but don't feel like writing it? Just make a phone
call and broadcast. Then share.
It gives you an hour of talk time for a post (though WordPress says this may
decrease after testing). More details
here.
Wordpress has announced the launch of Wordpress for Android (1.0). It is
currently available in the Android Market. A lot of what we do on the web is now
done from mobile devices, so it only makes sense that this would include blog
management.
While it may not be the most convenient way to write a new post, users may find
it particularly helpful for at least keeping up with comments and responding.
The following clip shows what it can do:
Features of Wordpress for Android include:
- Configure and manage multiple blogs
- Comment moderation including the ability to reply to comments
- Create and Edit Posts including categories, tags and photos
- Create and Edit Pages
- Get notified of new comments in the Android notification bar
"Users of the popular
wpToGo app for Android will feel right
at home in WordPress for Android 1.0, as the source from wpToGo has been used as
the foundation for the WordPress app.," says Wordpress. "wpToGo will be
discontinued as all development efforts move forward with the Open Source
WordPress for Android app."
There is a
forum set up for Wordpress for Android
discussion. Users can converse about troubleshooting, weigh in on future
development in the requests and feedback area, or test beta builds of future
versions in the beta testing area.
Google has developed a plug-in for WordPress that adds the social features of
Google Friend Connect to WordPress blogs. The plug-in allows visitors to these
blogs to authenticate using any OpenID account, including Google, Yahoo, or AIM
and then comment on posts without having to register. When a visitor
authenticates, it creates a WordPress account.
"You can later add or remove permissions for the visitor from the WordPress site
administration pages,"
explains Mauro Gonzalez, who developed
the plug-in. "If desired, WordPress comments can be replaced by Google Friend
Connect comments gadgets. In this case, no WordPress account is created, since
Google Friend Connect handles both the rendering of the comments as well as
comments moderation. Regardless of whether the Google Friend Connect comments
gadgets are enabled or not, comment entries display the user profile picture and
link to the user’s profile."
There is a set of social gadgets available that includes the Social Bar,
Members, Recommendations, and Global Conversation gadgets. "When recommendations
are enabled, a 'Recommend' button is displayed below your posts allowing the
site members to choose the content they like most," says Gonzalez. "The most
popular posts will surface to the top of the list within the recommendations
gadget."
When a user of the WordPress blog posts content or comments on a post, this
information will appear in the Google Friend Connect activity stream. Features
of the plug-in like colors, size, labels, etc. can be customized in Wordpress
like anything else.
The plug-in is available on the
Google Code site. Examples are live in
demos
here and
here.
WordPress has launched a couple of new mobile themes for bloggers who use
WordPress.com. The themes are designed to display automatically when the
blogger's blog is accessed with a compatible mobile device.
Making moves to get blogs to display properly on mobile devices is a good move
considering recent research, which found that
consumers are generally not pleased with
the way mobile web sites display.
"While mobile users may accept sites that are 'light' on richness and small in
form factor, they are evidently not willing to sacrifice performance," said Matt
Poepsel of Gomez, the company behind the research. "The mobile Web is all about
convenience - the Web in your pocket -and slow mobile pages contradict that
benefit. To avoid ongoing dissatisfaction and to capitalize on the mobile
opportunity, businesses need to place mobile performance management squarely at
the top of their to-do lists."
The WordPress themes should make that easier for on the blog side of things.
One theme is a modification of
WPtouch, and will be displayed to phones
with modern web browsers like those on the iPhone and Android phones. The other
was developed from an older version of the
WordPress Mobile Edition and will be
displayed to all other mobile devices.
"Mobile visitors greeted by WPtouch will get easy access to posts, pages, and
archives,"
says WordPress. "They'll get fancy AJAX
commenting and post loading. If you are using a custom header image, it will be
scaled to size and displayed at the top of your blog. When viewing your blog on
other phones, the focus will be on loading the blog quickly while displaying the
important information about your content."
According to Wordpress, over 60 million page views a month of WordPress.com
blogs have been on mobile devices.
· WordPress Receives Grammar Check Plug-In
I’ve always maintained that it’s dangerous to take a single Marketing Pilgrim post and assume you understand our sentiment and bias towards any one company. If you read yesterday’s criticism of WordPress, you’d think we were “automattic” haters.
Today, you’d be eating humble pie.
Automattic has announced the acquisition of After the Deadline, a service that provides spell checking, style checking, and grammar checking. Huzzah!
While I’m somewhat puzzled that WordPress.com users get After the Deadline baked-in, while us .org user are left once again with just a plugin, I still applaud the acquisition. Why? Because spell checking and grammar checking are the bane of any blogger’s existence!
For example, despite my own best efforts, I’m plagued with the curse of “its” versus “it’s.” It’s not that I don’t know how to use each, it’s that sometimes my fingers move faster than my brain. Judging by a demo offered by After the Deadline, I need to install this plugin ASAP:·
§ WP.me is the only two-letter .me domain in the world.
§ Every blog and post on WordPress.com has a WP.me URL now.
§ These are all exposed in the <head> using rel=shortlink.
§ It doesn’t work for any URL in the world, just WP.com-hosted ones.
§ The links are permanent, they will work as long as WordPress.com is around.
§ WP.me is spam-free, because we are constantly monitoring and removing spam from WP.com.
Matt goes on to
say:
"I think a few of these points are
worth following up on. While URL shorteners have had some incredible usage tied
to the growth (and constraints) of Twitter, I question their sustainability as a
business. This point was underscored a few days ago when a popular one, tr.im,
announced they were going to shut down at the end of the year.
Their story had a happy ending in that
someone came in and saved them, but it was hard not to think of what would have
happened if all their links stopped redirecting one day: part of the web would
go dark. I also worry that because
shorteners are essentially open proxies of
HTTP they’ll be exploited by spammers
and malware distributors to the point where businesses, anti-phishing, and
anti-virus services will be forced to block them.”
With popular micro-blogging site Twitter gaining so much popularity this year,
will people still find time for
Wordpress? It's unclear at this point, but by the looks of
things,
some people are already using WP.me.
Do
you think Wordpress has lost some bloggers to Twitter?
Let us know what you think.
If you want your blog to do better in Google’s search results, Matt Cutts
recommends WordPress. According to a presentation Google’s Webspam captain gave
at WordCamp San Francisco, Word Press takes care of about 80-90 percent of SEO
mechanics.
The presentation, which spans 50 pages, is available
at Cutts’ blog in Google Docs or PowerPoint.
Other than how WordPress helps automatically, Cutts gave tips about how to get a
blog to rank better in Google. The two biggest ones are be relevant and be
reputable.
Being Relevant
Some of this is voodoo and some of this technical, obviously. The big questions
are necessary, equivalent to who am I? Why am I here? Cutts recommends asking
yourself: “What do I love?” “What am I really good at doing?” What do I have to
say?”
Once you’ve answered those questions and commit to exploring them via bloggery,
there are some technical things for gaining relevance, like keyword relevance.
Choose words users are likely to type, and include them naturally in blog posts.
For example, a blogger can use name variations referring to the same device: usb
drive, thumb drive, flash drive, pen drive.” Cutts recommends ALT attributes.
Also consider URL structure. WordPress default URL structure uses question marks
and numbers, instead of day and name, month name, etc.. Cutts says these types
of URLs improve aesthetics, usability, and forward-compatibility. For URL paths
with keywords in them, Cutts says dashes (hyphens) are preferred over
underscores to separate words, but no spaces between words is a bad idea (example.com/my-keywords).
Don’t overdo keywords in the text. Make sure they flow naturally. Otherwise,
Google could bust you for keyword stuffing.
Being Reputable
Cutts recommends the following to boost a blogger’s reputation:
Be interesting
Update often
Find your niche
Provide a useful service
Do original research or reporting
Give great information
Live blog
Make lists
Create controversy
Meet people on Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed
Other Useful Information
Google crawls in decreasing order of PageRank, which means if a site has a low
PageRank, it will be crawled last, behind sites with higher ranking.
Cutts’ simplified definition of PageRank is “the number and importance of links
pointing to a site.”
Cutts also recommends plug-ins he uses for his blog, which include Akismet (a
comment spam catcher), Cookies for Comments (another comment spam catcher),
Enforce www. Preference (301 redirects to no-www or yes-www preference for link
building), Feedburner Feedsmith (for tracking subscribers), and WP Super Cache
(for fast caching).
Don't be surprised if a lot of blog posts, tweets, and YouTube videos start pouring out of Iraq in the near future. The U.S. State Department has led a number of corporate representatives to Baghdad, and the group includes executives from Google, Twitter, and Automattic/WordPress.
Employees of AT&T, Blue State Digital, Howcast, Meetup, Wired Magazine, and YouTube are also part of the team, which has been dubbed the "New Media Technology delegation." Their journey began yesterday, and should end on Thursday the 23rd.
As for what exactly they'll be up to, Robert Wood, Acting State Department Spokesman, stated during a briefing, "During the trip the delegation will meet with representatives from the Government of Iraq, the public and private education sectors, Iraqi technology companies, and groups active in Iraqi civil society."
He also explained, "[T]hey will provide conceptual input as well as ideas on how new technologies can be used to build local capacity, foster greater transparency and accountability, build upon anti-corruption efforts, promote critical thinking in the classroom, scale-up civil society, and further empower local entities and individuals by providing the tools for network building."
So Google and the other companies may soon be involved in pretty much every aspect of online life in Iraq.
You can follow the delegation's trip, if you want, through Jack Dorsey's Twitter account and Raanan Bar-Cohen's blog.
Running a blog can be a big nuisance; you've got keep up with current events, write posts, and monitor comments on at least a daily basis. But new Pingdom statistics should lighten the load by helping people make sure their blogs remain accessible.
Pingdom observed nine different blogging services for a period of four months in order to find out which ones suffered the least amount of downtime. The uptime-monitoring company's test ran through March 10th, so its findings should be quite current.
TypePad came out on top, spending just 14 minutes in non-working order. Blogger and WordPress.com were next, with both services losing 20 minutes. Then there was a significant drop-off, as Windows Live Spaces, Blogster, and Squarespace experienced 250, 279, and 313 minutes' worth of downtime, respectively.
Vox, LiveJournal, and Blog.com wrap up the list with performances too bad to bother reporting.
So there's some significant (and even potentially valuable) data for all the bloggers out there. If you're using one of the less reliable services, consider making a switch and testing what sort of effect the move has on your readership and ad revenue.
Whether a given blogger takes pride in being a weirdo or feels safer as part of a crowd, a new report will help him (or her) sort out exactly where he (or she) stands. Pingdom staffers took a close look at which platforms are most common among the most popular blogs.
WordPress grabbed first place with no problem, with 27 out of the top 100 blogs (as ranked by Technorati) using it. The platform's fans range from big corporations like the New York Times to individuals such as Chris Brogan.
Then came TypePad, with 16 followers, Blogsmith with 14, and Movable Type with 12. There are some pretty impressive names to be found on their sections of a user list, as well. (Think Wired properties, Autoblog, and Boing Boing, respectively.)
We'll skip down to Blogger next. It seems like a bit of a defeat for Google to find it in ninth place, being used by only three out of the top 100 blogs. Worse still: one of those three blogs is the Official Google Blog, landing the platform in "my mom thinks I'm handsome" territory.
Ah, well. Hats off to the Royal Pingdom crew for the research they did, and good luck with the transfer if you decide to choose a new blog platform for yourself or your company.
Integrating polls into your WordPress blog just got easier. WordPress creators Automattic have acquired poll and survey service PollDaddy.
"Now whenever you do a post you’ll be a few clicks away from having your own poll, and you can have as many as you like!" says WordPress founding developer Matt Mullenweg. "We’re also going to be working on a lot more styles and customization of the polls, so you’ll be able to match it exactly to the look and feel of your blog." PollDaddy contains the following features:
"For a year or two now, I’ve been minorly obsessed with polls and surveys as a
method of lightweight interaction that engages casual users of your website and
also can get you some really fun data to play with," says Mulleneg. "I’ve also
mentioned at a few WordCamps that a polling plugin is one of the top 10
WordPress plugins in the world. Polls are really popular with WordPress users."
There's no doubt that polls can be a great way to inspire audience participation
(or user engagement if you will). They can be great way to come up with
interesting statistics (more so for more popular blogs) and get feedback from
readers about your blog itself, which can then lead to improvements. Polls make
for a nice interactive element that people often just happen to find fun.
With so many of the Blogosphere's blogs running on WordPress, PollDaddy could
potentially have an impact on a great number of them. For a nice demo on how
PollDaddy for WordPress works, check out the video below.
Lately, we've been seeing blog platforms making moves to become more social.
Movable Type started incorporating the
ability to set up social networks apart from the Facebook Connect plugin that is
available.
Blogger discussed adding new features
including integrating Google Friend Connect into it.
Apparently the Facebook Connect Wordpress plugin has now leaked. Though still in
beta mode, it would allow Facebook members to connect with one another via
comments on Wordpress blogs. This is not unlike
what Movable Type has done.
"The difference with the Facebook Wordpress plugin is that the Wordpress plugin
is an internal Facebook project,"
writes Nick O'Neill at AllFacebook - the
Unofficial Facebook Blog. "This also means that Facebook wants to be able to own
the comments on your site. Anytime you enable users to login via Facebook, you
won't have access to their email address, unlike Disqus and native Wordpress
comments. That would probably be my greatest complaint."
Facebook did contact O'Neill and said that it was not an official Facebook
project, so I guess it is still up in the air when it comes to that. With the
Movable Type version, Facebook users who visit Movable Type sites can sign in to
their Facebook accounts without creating a new one. Profile pictures and names
can be displayed, and friends updated when you "participate on the web."
I'm assuming that the Wordpress version will serve basically the same purposes.
There's no word on when it will be released to the public. Facebook made O'Neill
remove it, and probably have had others do the same.
This is an event I’ve been looking forward to for quite a while - WordCamp UK 2008, the first WordCamp in the UK, takes places in Birmingham during this weekend July 19-20.
There is a packed agenda planned for the two days, offering something for everyone with an interest in WordPress, whatever your knowledge or skill level and however you’re involved with blogging on WordPress.
If you’re a developer, there’s a lot of interest for you. Likewise if you run a WordPress blog. If you are simply a blogger writing a WordPress blog and don’t care much for the tech stuff, this is still an event for you.
Perhaps of greatest interest from a participant’s point of view is that WordCamp UK 2008 gives you an opportunity to connect with influential bloggers and talented designers and developers in the UK who have a passion for WordPress. That’s a big attraction for me.
Check the event wiki and blog for more information.
I’ll be there but only on Sunday July 20. Just can’t get there for Saturday as I have an unbreakable family commitment.
This first UK WordCamp is the result of an awful lot of volunteerism and planning by just a handful of people, starting with Tony Scott. Thanks to Tony and everyone who have made this event happen.
WordCamp UK 2008 takes place at The Studio in central Birmingham (map). Entry is by ticket only and ticket sales will stop late on Friday. So if you plan to be there and haven’t yet got your ticket, buy it today!
If you’re a WordPress user in the UK and are keen to get involved with others to share tips and experiences about blogging with WordPress, take note that a WordCamp is coming to the UK.
From an initial idea by Tony Scott, the concept starting gaining traction last week via a mailing list discussion.
Now, it’s becoming more official and organized with formal support from Automattic, the company behind WordPress, with a wiki as the place to focus planning and organization for what will be the first UK WordCamp.
What’s a WordCamp? you might be wondering. Here’s a succinct explanation:
WordCamp is an informal gathering of WordPress bloggers, podcasters, designers and developers.
An unconference might be another way to describe it. Maybe along the lines of PodCamp UK last year (which was a terrific experience).
Neither the venue nor the dates are known yet. But if you’re interested, dive in and join the planning discussions.
Whenever it happens, I definitely want to be there!
We could say that BuddyPress has a friend in Automattic, but following a recent development, it's actually more accurate to say that BuddyPress is a friend in Automattic. BuddyPress was acquired by the WordPress parent company.
On BuddyPress.com, a single line of text states, "BuddyPress will transform a vanilla installation of WordPress MU into a social network platform." In a post on his blog, Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, explain why this idea is of interest to him.
"It's clear that the future is social," Mullenweg writes. "Connections are key. WordPress MU is a platform which has shown itself to be able to operate at Internet-scale and with BuddyPress we can make it friendlier. Someday, perhaps, the world will have a truly Free and Open Source alternative to the walled gardens and open-only-in-API platforms that currently dominate our social landscape."
With the implication being that Automattic and BuddyPress might be the ones to bring the alternative into existence.
We're not there yet, though, and Mullenweg didn't say anything further on the matter. Also left unsaid are BuddyPress's purchase price and the terms under which its creator, Andy Peatling, agreed to work for Automattic.
If you're willing to trust Matt Mullenweg, and believe WordPress is fairly representative of blog platforms everywhere, then have we got a statistic for you: it seems that at least 30 percent of all blogs may be spam.
During an appearance at the Future of Web Apps conference, Mullenweg stated that WordPress powers 2,523,000 blogs. Also, as Caroline McCarthy wrote, "WordPress has deleted more than 800,000 'splogs,' or spam blogs."
Divide the second number by the first, multiply by 100, and you get 31.7 percent. Almost one-third, if you round up, or three out of ten, if you'd prefer to round down. That's high, and that's ignoring McCarthy's "more than" and the possibility that WordPress missed some splogs.
Still, Dan Frommer, who inspired this little analysis, pointed out that things could be worse. "Anti-spam software firm Commtouch says 96% of global emails are junk," he wrote.
Let's just hope blog spammers don't take the comparison as a challenge.
Owners of new Blogspot or WordPress sites may worry that Google won't index them. And we can't guarantee that Google will do so quickly, or even that the search giant will do so at all. There's a fair amount of evidence suggesting that things will be taken care of sooner rather than later, however.
We'll start with the slightly disquieting stuff. On the WebmasterWorld forum, "dhirajch" writes, "I think it is not always. but yes definetly much more faster than any website."
The other less-than-assuring piece of information comes from Ted Ulle, who states, "Without any external links, google is not likely to index any site, whether it's a blog or not. They're definitely not likely to keep in the index for very long even, if they do discover the url somehow."
But people like "IncrediBILL" and Tamar Weinberg, along with at several others, have said there's little to worry about. Several examples were given in which Blogspot or WordPress sites showed up in Google's search results either quickly or without any effort on the author's part.
In the end, maybe it's best to toss a few outside links into a piece to make sure. Also, all the other usual SEO tips are liable to help, as well. But it seems like no special actions are necessary (and no anxiety is in order) when trying to get a new blog indexed by Google.
I guess that could be the case if you’re not very serious about your blog. However, if you truly possess the passion to even take the time to blog, you’re going to want to make the most of it.
First and foremost, you want readers. But how do you get them there? I had a nice chat with two well-known bloggers who gave several helpful tips relating to blog comments.
Leo Laporte, host of TWiT.tv and blogger of Leoville.com, told me a few pointers for driving traffic to your blog:
1. Have good content
2. Update your blog regularly
3. Present it well
4. Have a clear point of view and clear speech
5. Participate in other blogs, conferences, and forums
6. Use social media tools
Another important point relating to blog comments is how to get readers to comment. Matt Mullenweg, the Founding Developer of WordPress and blogger of photomatt.net, echoes Laporte’s word that content should be solid and well written. He also suggests leaving your content open-ended. According to Mullenweg, readers are likely to respond if this criteria is met.
What happens if someone leaves a negative comment? Everyone’s first instinct is to delete anything negative, but is that always right?
Laporte and Mullenweg both believe some negative comments are good. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and if they choose to share it, they have that right even if you disagree with them.
The experts say it is appropriate to remove a comment if it is not intelligent and is slanderous to the blogger. However, if all the comments on the blog are positive and praise the blogger, it could turn readers away and result in low traffic and few or no comments.
Laporte points out that it is a good idea to have a set of commenting guidelines. Let the readers know if you do not allow racist, homophobic, or obscene comments. It is also good to specify what age group the audience is.
To find out more information on blogging and blog comments, tune into the WebProNews video, “A Few Comments on Commenting...”
It seems Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg and team have gotten the Twitter bug. In
fact, they love the idea of micro-updates so much, they’ve launched a new
WordPress theme that lets you
create your own blog version of Twitter.
They’ve named it
Prologue.
Here’s how it looks:
(click image for live demo)
Here’s how it works:
Basically how it works is when someone has the ability to post to a blog they see a short form at the top of the home page with a post box and tags. There they can post short messages about what they’re doing.
Below the posting box is a list of everyone’s latest tweet or message, with their Gravatar next to it. You can click on an author to see all their messages, or a tag to see all of the messages in a given tag (which we use for projects). There are RSS feeds for everything: the entire prologue, each author, each tag, and even combination or searches can be subscribed to in your RSS reader.
Just like any WordPress blog, you can decide on the contributors, set privacy options, and leave comments for each other.
Automattic just invented a new reason for everyone to grab a WordPress blog. My wheels are turning already–maybe we could have a Marketing Pilgrim Prologue, where readers add their own news.
How would you use Prologue?
The popular blogging platform drew a sizable investment from The New York Times Company, which expanded its minority stake in WordPress parent Automattic.
Now we know why Matt Mullenweg could be so generous with the added storage at WordPress. His company received its second round of venture funding as the Times joined existing investors in pumping up Automattic's coffers.
"Automattic is now positioned to execute on our vision of a better web not just in blogging, but expanding our investment in anti-spam, identity, wikis, forums, and more - small, open source pieces, loosely joined with the same approach and philosophy that has brought us this far," Mullenweg said on his blog.
Om Malik noted some of the investment round would be used to give Automattic's founders and other senior management types the chance to cash in some of their holdings. Doing so gives those folks motivation to stick around until the bigger payday arrives.
WordPress has an impressive collection of companies using its platform for blogging, including the Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, and other big media properties.
Automattic CEO Toni Schneider said this round of financing helps the company achieve a couple of goals: financial security, and the further development of other products like the Akismet spam filter.
BidVertiser has recently added the ability to integrate its services with FeedBurner, Blogger and WordPress:
1. WordPress Plugin to allow you to seamlessly embed the BidVertiser Ads in your feeds.
2. Solution for FeedBurner that allows you to embed the BidVertiser Ads in your current FeedBurner address.
3. Solution for Blogger that allows you to embed the BidVertiser Ads in the footer of each of your post feeds.
The integration is actually quite simple and literally takes less than a minute
to setup. Below are the instruction for Blogger and Feed Burner:
Blogger (full
instructions)
4. Login to your Blogger account.
5. Click Settings -> Site Feed.
6. Copy your BidVertiser Feed Code to the Post Feed Footer area.
7. You must also set Enable Post Pages to Yes (in Archiving settings) and set Allow Blog eeds to Full.
8. Click Save Settings.
FeedBurner (full instructions)
9. Register your ORIGINAL feed with BidVertiser (not the one you got from FeedBurner).
10. Login to your FeedBurner account.
11. Click Edit Feed Details.
12. Type your new feed address from BidVertiser under Original Feed.
13. Click Save Feed Details.
Storage space at WordPress.com became more plentiful after Matt Mullenweg announced a big increase for free accounts to 3GB.
Google's Blogger service offers 1GB of storage and occasionally suffers frustrating service outages. Mullenweg thinks bloggers can do better at WordPress.
The popular blogging platform turned more desirable after a welcome storage upgrade greeted users of the service. Out with the old 50MB limit, in with a boost to 3GB.
"To get half that much space (1GB) at our nearest competitor, Typepad, you’d pay at least $300 a year," wrote Mullenweg. "We’re doing the same thing for free."
He compared the move to Google opening Gmail to the masses with a gigabyte of storage when other web-based email services still provided a few meager megabytes to their users.
"Over the past year we’ve developed our file infrastructure, replication, backup, caching, and S3-backed storage to the point where we don’t feel like we need to artificially limit what you folks are able to upload just to keep up with growth," said Mullenweg.
Extra storage buyers on WordPress.com will see higher limits available for purchase soon. Currently, those who paid for an upgrade to 1GB will have that level of service moved up to 5GB at no additional charge.
There are a lot of data points that can be meaningful for tracking blog
effectiveness.
That is, tracking what happens when visitors arrive at and engage with your blog
content. It really comes down to the purpose of your blog. Metrics for a blog
that’s focused on making a web site more search engine friendly by adding
crawlable content and attracting links is quite different than a blog that’s
meant to build thought leadership or brand credibility.
Many of the metrics tools used for blogs are also used for basic web site analytics. That makes sense because many blog initiatives do not have the same kind of budget as web site marketing programs do. Therefore, the analytics employed tend to be low(er) or no cost.
Regardless of the purpose, I’ve assembled a list below of the various tools we use, or have tested to report onsite blog metrics. Pick the service or tool you like the most from the list below or something new for your unique purpose and please share in the comments. The list is in no particular order.
§ 103bees - Free web stats (ad supported) up to 100k visits per month, then it’s $9
§ Enquisite - Free, extremely detailed web stats
§ Hittail - Provides suggested topics for your blog by keywords used in referral traffic
§ Crazy Egg - Provides overlay, list and heat map web stats
§ RobotReplay - Lets you record visitor actions on your site and play them back
§ Clicky - Web stats plus feed and Feedburner stats
§ Google Analytics - Web stats, not really the best for blogs but it’s free
§ StatCounter - Free web stats
§ Co.mments - Track comment threads starting on your blog and follow them elsewhere in a feed
§ Blog Tracker - Free from IceRocket but limited functionality
§ Performancing Metrics - Basic is Free, or $3.99 to $16.99 per month for more features
§ Site Meter - Basic Free and Premium versions $6.95 and up
§ Mint - Popular web stats with bloggers for $30 per site
§ MyBlogLog - Basic blog visitor stats and social networking. Free and paid versions.
§ Feedburner Stats - StandardStats Free, TotalStats $4.99/mo
§ Wordpress Stats - Free basic blog stats plugin for Wordpress blogs
§ Google Analytics and Feedburner Stats - Free plugin for Wordpress blogs
§ eXTReMe Tracking - Free web stats with a paid version for $4.50 per month
§ Web Stat - Many web stats features for $5/mo
§ TraceWatch - Free but you need access to your server which should be running PHP/MySQL
What are your favorite analytics tools for blogs?
·
Wordpress Sees Huge Growth in 2007
Here are some numbers about blogging and social networking sites according to Nielsen Online. They just released November’s numbers on the top 10 social networking sites. The biggest gainers are Flixster (where you share movie reviews) and LinkedIn, a social network for professionals.
Quick Facts
§ MySpace.com is #1 social networking site in the US, with nearly 57.4 million unique visitors last month.
§ Google’s Blogger rests is #1 for blog site rankings with 33.6 million visitors and 49% more than last year with 33.6 visitors in November.
§ #2 social networking site, Facebook is keeping double digit growth rates compared to last year. The number of visitors is nearly 22.0 million - 89 percent higher compared to MySpace visitors which rose just 7 percent year over year.
§ WordPress, the #2 blogging platform grew 310 percent from last year with 12 million visitors, — up from 2.9 million last year. #3 is Type Pad, which grew — 22 percent from last year with 11.0 million visitors in Nov.
Here’s a chart that shows last month’s comparison of the top blog sites. Blogger is far ahead but Wordpress and Thatsfit (a health-oriented blog) are growing very quickly. Judging from this social networking sites are topping out more than blogs. There is positive growth for all but Xanga.
·
Top Ten Sphinn Posts for the Year
Since we are winding down the year of 2007, I thought it would be appropriate to
put together what I thought are the top 10 blog posts about Sphinn that have
been written in 2007.
Certainly there have been a lot of interesting blog posts about Sphinn.
So, without further delay, let’s get on to what I think are the top 10 blog posts about Sphinn for 2007:
Note that I have not put these in any particular order.
The First (un)Official Sphinn Awards
The Sphinn Awards, even though they’re the unofficial ones, are definitely
something that should come on an annual basis. I didn’t choose this Sphinn blog
post because I happen to have one a Sphinn award, but just thought that if it’s
an award about Sphinn it should definitely be on this list.
Sphinn Launches: Social Voting Community for Search
Marketers
DoshDosh, as always, did a great review of Sphinn, full of screen captures and
everything. Even outlines part of the the submission guidelines that we all need
to remember:
Yes, you can submit your own stories. In fact, we’d rather you directly submit your own stories you think are of interest to the community than have someone do it for you.
Yes, you can submit your own blog post about a news story you read. However, we’d prefer you only do this if you’ve added something unique to the general news topic, such as an extended opinion or further clarification.
Sphinn: Our Social Site For Search & Internet Marketing
Professionals
Danny’s explanation of Sphinn back in July is a great overview and recap of
Sphinn. I just had to put this in the top 10 list.
By no means do we envision Sphinn as replacing general news sites like Digg. We just think the story submission model can work and be powerful in a specialized area such as search, as well.
Add Sphinn Bookmarking To the Share This Wordpress
Plugin
I cannot put together a top 10 Sphinn blog post list without mentioning the
Sphinn Wordpress plugin. Sorry, but I
just had to do it. If you use WordPress then you just have to use this plugin.
Please Don’t Ask Me to Sphinn Your Stories
Tamar’s commentary and rant about Sphinn is a classic one. Definitely my vote
for the top 10 Sphinn blog posts of all time.
It’s no longer a “the familiar faces dominate the front page” mentality. Instead, it’s the “please Sphinn me” requests that are overflowing on other communication mediums, particularly Facebook and StumbleUpon, that is causing this to happen. You ask me on IM/Facebook, I appear to be active, and I am not the type of person to ignore your request so I feel obligated to comply. However, it’s not fair to other people who may not know me or other community members so well and don’t solicit votes like you do.
Sphinn Is In - But Is It Better Than Digg?
This has got to get into the top 10. Great post comparing Sphinn to Digg. Lots
of great points brought up and it’s interesting to see why Sphinn beats out Digg.
The button is nice, but how good is Sphinn? Is it really worth it?
It depends. I’ve had some stories on there that got a few sphinns. Never made it to the home page though…
Even so, it has sent me a few visitors. And Sphinn visitors seem to stay an average of 1:20. Not bad, especially because it was 97% new visitors. However, most referrals were better, and even StumbleUpon users (over the same time period) stuck around an average of 1:35.
How to Reach the Front Page in Sphinn
This one is pretty much a no-brainer. If you Sphinn stuff then you need to know
what does well on Sphinn and how to get your stuff on the home page.
feeling…So far I have Sphinn many articles but with little success so I have began to analyzes the Sphinn website and what will make a post reach the hot topics page.
This can be broken down in to 5 key areas:
20 Top Sphinners You Should Know
I’m not putting this in the top 10 list because I’m on the list. Really, I’m
not. But pointing out the top 20 Sphinners is helpful, and Gabriel Goldenberg
does a great job at picking out the Sphinners you really should get to know.
I was having a glance through Sphinn’s top users rankings as well as their top content, and I realized that while I know a fair amount of those folks (know who they are, I mean), there’s a number that I don’t. I had a look at 20 of the top unknown (to me) Sphinners’ sites and have the following to share with you as a result.
Why Rand Is Wrong, And Sphinn Is A Popularity Contest
I have to admit, there are some pretty good stories on Sphinn’s home page but
you do keep seeing the same Sphinners time and time again. Does that really mean
that it’s a popularity contest?
TannerC argues that the stories which are dominating the homepage of the site, due to the number of votes (or Sphinns) which they have received, are predominantly from the big names in the search sector; people such as Rand, Lisa, Vanessa, & Todd. He also suggests that this is a de facto status quo that makes it hard for newbies to break into
Why Sphinn Needs a Dumbass Button
We still haven’t gotten a “dumbass button” on Sphinn, but we at least have some
moderators who do a pretty good job at taking care of Sphinn spam.
Now normally, I’m not a big fan of Digg’s “bury it” function, but in this case, I think it’s warranted. If we can’t get Danny to give us the ability to make a stupid post go away, then at least give us a big red Dumbass button that will flag the post as one not worth clicking on.
I, too, am not a fan of bury functions, but it seems as though there are some pretty annoying posts that need to be buried from time to time.
