 |
 |
 |
|
01.27.09 Adding Value To Your CMS  By Neville Hobson One of the features that make self-hosted WordPress such an excellent content management system or blogging platform (take your pick of description) is the easy way you can extend functionality through adding third-party plug-ins. I use a lot of plug-ins - currently 35 active ones on this blog - that provide both you (the visitor or subscriber and, perhaps, conversationalist) and me (the content publisher) with new or additional functionality that make our interaction and overall experience with the blog and all its content that much better. With recent versions of WordPress, plug-in management has become a more seamless activity where, as a blogger, you can now install or upgrade plug-ins from within your admin dashboard with just a couple of mouse clicks. The trend is clearly towards no more manually downloading zip files, unpacking them, uploading separately by FTP to your server, etc. All that geeky stuff puts normal people off.  
The easier is it to set up a plug-in, the more likely it is that you will try something. For plug-in developers, the centralized Plugin Directory at WordPress.org makes it easier for them to more easily raise awareness of and distribute their creations as well as plug them in, as it were, to the overall WordPress community of developers and users. All of this is really a preamble to talking about two specific plug-ins that are new to me and which I think really do add something worthwhile: 1. Chat Catcher by Shannon Whitley.  I first saw Chat Catcher mentioned in a post by Dave Fleet last month. What it does is quite simple and very useful:
Chat Catcher scans services like Twitter and FriendFeed for references to your blog posts. When someone links to your blog, their post will be published to your blog's comments. [...] Twitter post history is provided by Search.Twitter.com. FriendFeed data is pulled from the FriendFeed API.
Continue reading this article. About the Author: Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology. Neville is a UK-based communicator, blogger and podcaster. He helps companies use effective communication to achieve their business goals. Visit Neville Hobson's blog: NevilleHobson.com. |
|
| ||||
| -- ContentManagementNews is an iEntry, Inc. publication -- iEntry, Inc. 2549 Richmond Rd. Lexington KY, 40509 2009 iEntry, Inc. All Rights Reserved Privacy Policy Legal archives | advertising info | news headlines | free newsletters | comments/feedback | submit article |
