To help make it easier for you to use this site, I’ve added some new features starting with a couple of WordPress plugins:
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Subscribe to comments via email. Using the nifty Subscribe to Comments 2.0 plugin, each post now includes a checkbox beneath the comment area which you can set so that you can choose to receive an email notification whenever anyone subsequently comments to that post. Once you’ve subscribed, you’ll also be able to manage your subscriptions via a special page on this site and do things like unsubscribe to certain or all posts, or change your notification email address. (If you do subscribe, I promise not to use your email address for anything nor share it with anyone.)
A participatory benefit like this, by the way, was high on my wish list when I had my blog at TypePad. It’s also in John Unger’s 40+ Ways that TypePad Could Rock Even Harder list over at TypePad Hacks.
In addition to email, you can also subscribe to this blog’s comments RSS feed. That’s a standard feature of WordPress, not a plugin. Note that if you do subscribe, you’ll get all comments to all posts.
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See the latest comments to all posts. In the right-hand sidebar on the home page, there’s a list of the ten most recent comments to posts showing the name of the commenter and an excerpt of his or her comments, with a link to the comments in a particular post. The plugin is Simple Recent Comments. I’ve actually called this list ‘Conversations’ - that seems far more engaging than just ‘Comments.’
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Embedded podcasting. With the awesome Podpress plugin, it’s very easy to write a post and include links to a podcast plus an embedded Flash player so you can listen to it there and then. I’m not sure yet how much use I’ll make of this in my own name (I’m focused on doing podcasts at For Immediate Release) but it’s a very neat addin for WordPress. See my post last weekend for more info.
A plugin I’ve not yet been able to get working on this site is WP-Print, quite a good looking one that gives you a nicely-formatted version of a post ideal for printing (see this demo page by the plugin author). I think the reason it doesn’t work is to do with how some of the PHP code in one of the files in the K2 theme that I use is in a different file to where the plugin expects it to be. I’m still trying to work that one out.
Stephan Spencer has a terrific list of other excellent WordPress plugins.
I’ve also added a new Resources page (new link in the menu bar at the top of the page), an entry to some of my articles, reviews, case studies, presentations and downloads which address key elements of social media and organizational communication. What’s there now is just a start: I’ll be adding to it over time. Feel free to grab any of this if it will be helpful to you; just note, please, the conditions of use as described in the Creative Commons license on this site or as stated in an individual document.
If you find any or all of these additions useful (or not, even), do let me know. Anything else you’d like to see in this site?
[23/3/06] Just added a new one to the comments box on a post - Comment Quick Tags. This lets you do things in your comment text like add formatting and adding a link by highlighting the text you want to make as a link and then clicking on a button which pops up a dialog where you can insert the link. Simpler and easier than typing in the ‘a href=’ stuff by hand. Not sure I like how the tag buttons are displayed - a bit chunky-looking for my taste. Need to see how I can change the style of them, probably in the CSS somewhere.
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