Ultimate Social Plugin for WordPress: FV Community News

Janith — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:52:31 +0000

Running a successful blog is just as demanding as starting a business, meeting a goal or even running for the US presidency (exaggeration at it’s best!). It all depends on how much effort you put in and what you want to achieve with your blog.

Maintaining a successful blog and the above comparisons are by far different on many levels, but nevertheless they both require a type of confidence, a type of motivation and most importantly; a type of perseverance.

Anyways, moving on from the radical metaphors.. the point of that introduction was to highlight how hard it is to run a blog.

If you run a blog by yourself or with a friend – you know how easily how the workload can just pile up! When it comes to constantly writing good content, responding to your readers and obviously building on traffic – just too much for you to handle? Well, why don’t we eliminate “responding to your readers” as a chore and turn it in to a potential flow of targeted content?

Now, that would be a big positive because that would partially take care of two so-called “chores” of running a blog! So, what if there’s an ‘ultimate social plugin‘ that will do wonders to your site, ease your workload and EVEN please your readers? Well.. there is!

FV Community News allows your visitors to help you create more content for your site! A simple, yet ingenious plug-in to really incorporate your reader’s opinion and boost your site’s value, content and even SERPs.

As said by the developers themselves – “With this new Community News plugin you allow your visitors to add articles to the sidebar. Complete with moderation panel and a settings page, you can sit back while you have full control about the look and articles that being posted.”

Features

Currently, the Community News plugin has the following features:

Widget Ready (Different form/results widget)
Tags for use in posts/pages
AJAX Form Handling
Multi-Language Support
Moderation panel (with email option) – Make sure you approve the right articles
Edit Submissions
`My Submissions` Page
Customizable templates
Captcha Spam protection (on/off)
Akismet Spam protection (API key required)
Build-in RSS 2.0 Feed
Image Uploading
Settings
Uninstall Page
Configurable Responses

The Big Bad Wolf of FV Community News

That’s all the positives, but when it comes to using this plugin there are a couple of downfalls. The whole idea of allowing your readers to contribute with useful content is great – till you get spammers that try to abuse this feature.

You might find yourself accepting/rejecting articles added via this plugin a lot more than your comments ~ so, you need to balance out between free-content and loyalty of your readers. If you having problems with spammers, I would not even hesitate to suggest the use of Akismet and BadBahvious. The combination of these two plugins will take care most of your spammers!

Quick FV Community News Information

Author : Frank Verhoeven
Wordpress Version (required): 2.5+
Tested up to Version: 2.7
Current Plug-In Version: 1.3

What does it look like?

You can see the FV Community News in action over at DivitoDesigns. The side bar on the far-right is all content added by the readers. Also here’s a quick screen-shot of the actual Admin Control Panel, which can be accessed through your WordPress Admin CP;

Check it out, and let us know what you think!

Clear Mind Produces Clear Content

Janith — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 12:53:18 +0000

It’s important to have a specific plan in your head or even better write it down before you storm on to your computer and start blogging. Now, personally I know many bloggers that use this method and is fairly comfortable with it, but what if I said there’s an even better way for you to produce ever better content? Well, read on…

Every day, when I sit down at my desk, crack my fingers and start to plan my content for the day – I ask myself “What is the purpose of my content?” A simple question, but one I believe that can have the most complicated answer. Some days a simple “Tell my readers about a new Twitter tool” is all I answer to that question, and I start drafting. On the other hand, some days I would spend 30 minutes or more trying to develop a reasoned sketch for my content.

A writer with a clear mind and a clear goal will produce clear content. Undoubtedly, that would be an optimum writer in his/her prime. Having said that, you can’t always keep up this prime, with blogging as a part-time hobby – you social and daily life can be stressful and frustrating.

It’s not as easy as just coming home from work or school, sitting down and producing brilliantly thought out material. That is exactly why I take the time to question myself and plan a head even if I have world-breaking news – I always follow this simple pre-step.

When I first started using this tactic, I was always tempted to say “I’m writing because I want to satisfy my readers” and while that may be true for many of you as well, you need to think of the immediate purpose of the article your about to write.

Perhaps you’ve written a quick news flash to inform your readers? Or maybe you’re writing about a past experience within a certain aspect of blogging? Whatever your reason might be, it is important that you have it clearly in your mind and prevent it from fluctuating as you think of new ideas or emit another.

I’ve come up with a list of “common” writing purposes and you can manipulate them to kick-start your critical thinking;

Answer a question
Create an atmosphere
Develop an idea
Discuss a statement
Elicit a response
Explain or Inform
Give instructions
Persuade
Argue a case or point
Demonstrate
Develop a theory
Entertain
Educate
Explore
Present your point of view