Wordpress Plugins to Improve Your Blogroll - display recent posts under each link

Posted on July 2, 2009, 9:03 am, by Lindsay and received No Comments ».

I have seen this feature on some other blogs for the past few months and I know that it has helped to generate some traffic back to my site so I have been looking for an easy way to improve my blogroll to display the most recent post below the link.

Here are 2 plugins that are available to spruce up your blogroll.

  • What Others are Saying - this one has been around for a while and from the website it looks like there is tons of support for this plugin, but you have to add the RSS feed for each link to the link page for this plugin to display the links.
  • Feed Reading Blogroll - this plugin will take your existing links, automatically find the rss feed and display the most recent post under the link name.  There are lots of option and you can customize the look of your links in many ways - including hiding link categories that you don’t want to display. You can also sort the bookmarks by last updated rather than name, which could be a nice way to keep your blogroll with fresh content.

Blogtelling is currently running Feed Reading Blogroll on the side bar - it was easy to set up and customize the look - I like that I can add how recently the post was updated.

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Weekly Twitter Links for 2009-07-02

Posted on July 2, 2009, 8:30 am, by Lindsay and received No Comments ».
  • Anyone know of a wordpress theme that lets you display widgets in the header? @wordpress #wpthemes #
  • Learned about Posterous from @blogherald post - looks kind of like tumblr but better?!? - http://ow.ly/g4gL #
  • checking out Ardvark.com - this looks like it could be a great resource for sharing info among networks #
  • Weekly Twitter Links for 2009-06-25:
    Nice look at open source shopping carts and how to use wordpress with e-co.. http://tinyurl.com/nhv74k #

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Weekly Twitter Links for 2009-06-25

Posted on June 25, 2009, 8:30 am, by Lindsay and received No Comments ».
  • Nice look at open source shopping carts and how to use wordpress with e-commerce and some themes that for e-commerce http://ow.ly/fPi8 #
  • This tip helped me find the open applications that would not show on the desktop! http://ow.ly/fJQe #
  • Checking out Radar for photo sharing from your phone http://ow.ly/fFyI what do you use to share pictures other than flickr? #
  • RT @AmbulanticVideo: I’ve launched a project on Kickstarter. http://bit.ly/RkXiJ #
  • really excited to learn about Kickstarter - kind of like kiva - great way to learn about and support projects http://ow.ly/fEWI #
  • Checking out Chitika vs. adsense - has anyone had and success with Chitika? http://ow.ly/fyP2 #
  • post from @blogherald - list of blogs about the iphone - iPhone Blogs: 7 of the Best to Follow http://ow.ly/fpml #ablogabout #
  • City of Sad Toys - A Blog About lost toys: A Blog About What? - Last year I wrote a post that linked to some blo.. http://tinyurl.com/nxyjkr #
  • post from @problogger about working with adsense - I think this is one of the most helpful adsense posts I have read http://ow.ly/ffiy #
  • Weekly Twitter Links for 2009-06-18:
    great post from @chrisbrogan on getting started with social media - I like h.. http://tinyurl.com/ … #

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City of Sad Toys - A Blog About lost toys

Posted on June 20, 2009, 12:14 pm, by Lindsay and received No Comments ».

A Blog About What? - Last year I wrote a post that linked to some blogs about bacon and since then I have become more interested in blogs that tackle niche topics.  One of the best things about blogging is that it is an easy way to organize and share information on specific topics.  So I am creating a category on BlogTelling to profile some of these great blogs.  So here is the first in what I hope will become a much longer series of posts about unique blogs.

City of Sad Toys is a blog that is for sharing pictures of lost toys.  Al Hoff does a great job of curating these pictures and adding witty commentary to accomany the photos.  I like that this has become a project that has spread beyond Pittsburgh and City of Sad Toys now has submissions from across the country.

Blog Name: City of Sad Toys

Post Worth a Look: Love: Kicked to the Curb - I like the questions that go along with this photo

On Twitter: @cityofsadtoys

Some other blogs that you might enjoy - Akward Family Photos and Sorry I Missed Your Party (which I just discovered from Old Man Neill’s blog roll.)

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Weekly Twitter Links for 2009-06-18

Posted on June 18, 2009, 8:30 am, by Lindsay and received No Comments ».
  • great post from @chrisbrogan on getting started with social media - I like his thoughts on outposts and passports http://ow.ly/eoa6 #
  • Interesting post - Twitter Reschedules Downtime Because Of Iran | The Blog Herald http://ow.ly/enEn #
  • Interesting post - Twitter Reschedules Downtime Because Of Iran | The Blog Herald http://ow.ly/enx1 #
  • Interesting post - Twitter Reschedules Downtime Because Of Iran | The Blog Herald http://ow.ly/enwI #

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More Twitter Tools for Wordpress Blogs

Posted on June 2, 2009, 1:38 pm, by Lindsay and received No Comments ».

On my other blogs I use the plug-in Postalicious to automatically create a post from links that I have saved to delicious.  I have a delicious account for each of my blogs and this has been a great way to save and share revelant information.

But recently I have been using twitter to share links so I was thinking maybe there is way to create a blog post with recent tweets.  I did some searching and found this great list of tools from a marketing firm in Texas.  Here are 2 of the wordpress plug-ins that help you connect your blog to twitter.

1. Twitter Tools - here are a few of the features that I think are helpful to bloggers

  • Create a blog post from each of your tweets
  • Create a daily or weekly digest post of your tweets
  • Create a tweet on Twitter whenever you post in your blog, with a link to the blog post
  • Post a tweet from your sidebar
  • Post a tweet from the WP Admin screens

2. Twittar - when someone leaves a comment - Twittar checks their email to see if they have a twitter account, if the person has a twitter account - Twittar uses their twitter avatar next to their comment.

I am going to try using twitter to share some links and then use the Twitter Tools plug-in to create a daily digest of those tweets.

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Reccomended Reading for 2009-06-01

Posted on June 1, 2009, 9:30 am, by Lindsay and received No Comments ».

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Slide Show: What is Social Media and Why Should I Care?

Posted on May 31, 2009, 2:15 pm, by Lindsay and received 1 Comment ».
Rotary International
Image via Wikipedia

Last week I was invited to give a presentation to the Rotary Club in Braddock , PA about social media.  Here is a copy of my power point presentation from the afternoon.

The Braddock Rotary Club meets at the Grandview Golf Club in North Braddock which has a fantasic view of the Edgar Thompson Steel Works and Kennywood Park.  The Grandview Golf Club and Restaurant are open to the public and it is just a 10 minute drive from Pittsburgh.  Thanks to the Braddock Rotary for inviting me to speak and learn more about the rotary club.  Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations and there are rotary  chapters all over the world.

This presentation is pretty basic but I wanted to highlight how using a blog, rss feeds, twitter and other tools can be helpful for learning more about a business or topic and sharing information.

Whatis Social Media and Why Should I Care?

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3 Great Twitter Tools for Bloggers

Posted on March 23, 2009, 8:19 am, by Lindsay and received 1 Comment ».
Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

Twitter offers some widgets to display information on your blog, but the widgets for wordpress blogs are pretty limited.  Here are some other tools that I have tried out on this blog and others to help you connect your blog and twitter (by the way you can follow blogtelling on twitter here):

1. TwitterCounter

TwitterCounter offers some widgets that you can add to your sidebar.  I believe that TwitterCounter is still in beta but I found it very easy to set up - just enter your twitter name and go.  

  • a box that displays the number of people following you on twitter
  • a box that shows your most recent followers, you can customize the number of people that are displayed and the colors

TwitterCounter also offers a nice page of stats about how many people are following you over time.

2. WP-Twitip-Id Plugin 

This is a wordpress plugin that adds an extra field to the comments section where people can leave their twitter ID when they leave a comment.  It is pretty easy to install and you can customize how you want the commenters Twitter Id to display next to their comment.  I have installed the WP-Twitip-Id plugin on this blog so you can leave you Twitter Id when you leave a comment.

3. TwitterFeed

This is a helpful tool that creates a tweet from your RSS feed.  It is a great way to automatically post a tweet when you write a new blog post.  TwitterFeed is easy to set up - just enter your RSS feed and your twitter account info and you are good to go.  The most difficult part of TwitterFeed is logging in with OpenID - I just set up an account with MyOpenID which made the process much easier.  TwitterFeed lets you customize how often your tweets are updated and how many tweets you want to post.

I was also going to include TweetSnap, which displayes your most recent tweet in a pretty image, in this list but I can’t find a quick way to change the size of the image so I don’t think it is as helpful as the others listed above.

Check out these other posts about Twitter tools on Twitip and Quick Online Tips.

Some possibly related blog posts about Twitter and blogging… 
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Websites for Managing Your Playoff Brackets and Tournaments

Posted on March 19, 2009, 8:21 am, by Lindsay and received No Comments ».
A 16-player, single-elimination tournament bra...
Image via Wikipedia

I recieved an email from Mission Control, a firm that specializes in mailings for political campaigns, about their March Madness tournament.  I participated in a friends bracket pool last year - he did the entire pool by hand and I think it was quite a bit of work to calculate the scores from each person in the pool.

March Madness seems particularlly hot this year - with even the President making bracket picks bracketology is now Baraketology.  You can check out President Obama’s bracket on the White House Blog here.

I noticed that the Mission Control tournament was powered by tourneytopia.com.  Which got me thinking about the idea of March Madness as a community building opportunity - a great way to engage others in your website.  I did a quick look at what websites exist to make it possible to set up your own bracket pool - here is what I found - some are free and some charge a fee.

I set up a quick pool for IheartPGH and announced the pool on twitter and facebook - the response has been great - over 25 people have submitted brackets.  

Are there websites out there for managing bracket pools?  Which one do you like best? Continue reading this post »

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