Why I Love Blellow

Twitter is one of those once in a life time (actually once in a couple of years) sites that come along and change the way we do things. Who would’ve thought just a few years ago that a micro-blogging community that limits your posts to 140 characters per post would be so popular. Twitter is great whether you want to use it to network with others or just drive traffic to your website. But there is more to life than Twitter. There’s actually Blellow. I personally heard about Blellow on Twitter. There was a discussion about Blellow’s headquarters being visited by someone famous, and I happened to see that thread on Twitter. I didn’t think of it too much at first, but once I checked the site properly, my mind was on fire. There is just so much you can do on Blellow and you can get work done more effectively on it.

Blellow is not a Twitter clone. It’s Twitter on steroids. It is designed to help you reach out to experts in the community, ask for their expertise, and offer yours to other Blellow members. Here are a few things you can do on Blellow:

• Groups: wouldn’t it be nice if you could join a group on your favorite topic and discuss it to death with others? You can do it all on Blellow.
• Jobs: looking to find a job? Are you tired of Hot Jobs and CareerBuilders of this world? Then try Blellow! One of the best ways to find a job.
• Projects: want to get help with your projects? That’s a piece of cake with Blellow.
• Meetups: want to meet with your buddies in person? That’s why we have meetups!

Blellow may be young, but there is so much promise behind this idea. I am not suggesting that you should give up on Twitter. It is still king. But Blellow is the best place to meet other like-minded people, get help with your projects, and even find new jobs. If you missed Twitter in its early days, don’t make the same mistake again with Blellow. Trying Blellow will be worth your while. I am sure of it!

P.S. don’t forget to connect with me and join Wordpress Hacks and Wordpress Themes groups on Blellow.

50 Best Twitter Wordpress Plugins

So you are interested in getting more out of Twitter? Wordpress has some of the best plugins that you can use to integrate Twitter into your Wordpress community and drive more traffic to your website. Whether you want folks to vote for your stories on tweetmeme or just find out who is linking to you from Twitter, there is a plugin for you.

Here are 50 best Twitter plugins to get the most out of Twitter on your blog:

1. TweetSuite: a complete Twitter solution for your blog.
2. Tweetbacks: another tweetback plug-in for Wordpress.
3. Twittar: a plug-in that uses Twitter to show avatars in comments.
4. Twitter LiveBlog: lets you liveblog on your Wordpress blog.
5. Twitme: notifies your followers about your new blog posts.
6. BirdFeeder: yet another Twitter plug-in that sends your posts to your Twitter account.
7. MyTwitter: show your Twitter status on your blog and update it from your Wordpress blog.
8. Twitt-Twoo: an Ajax plug-in that allows you to update your Twitter status from your sidebar.
9. Twitter Tools: one of the best Twitter tools ever made for Wordpress. You can send updates to your Twitter account and create blog posts from your Tweet.
10. Twitter Updater: yet another Wordpress plug-in that helps you promote your blog posts on Twitter.
11. Twitter WP Sidebar Widget: a plug-in that makes it easy to add Twitter to your sidebar.
12. WordTwit: yet another tool to send updates to your Twitter account when you publish posts.
13. TwitterPress: yet another cool Wordpress plug-in, allowing you to promote your posts on Twitter.
14. TwitterFeed: TwitterFeed is a Twitter management plugin for Wordpress. Lets you display your latest tweets too.
15. Twitter for Wordpress: shows your latest tweets on your blog.
16. WP Twitip ID: adds an extra field to the comment form for user to enter their twitter username.
17. TwitThis: an amazing little plug-in which makes it easy for your readers to tweet your posts.
18. TwitURLs: shows favorite URLs on Twitter.
19. TweetRoll: show the people you are following and the number of followers you have.
20. Twitter Wordpress Widget: another Twitter widget plug-in.
21. NewTweet: Set a keyword or phrase and NewsTweet constantly pulls twitter posts containing that word or phrase
22. Twitter Blaster: allows your visitors to update your Twitter account!
23. Ajax Twitter Plugin: uses Twitter API to get and post the updates
24. Tweet This: adds a shortened Twitter link to each and every post.
25. TwitterCounter: shows the number of folks following you on your blog.
26. WP to Twitter: uses Cligs to post your blog posts to Twitter.
27. Thread Twitter: shows twitter posts as a thread.
28. ParaTwit: a Twitter updater plug-in that is integrated with TinyURL.
29. TwitterSplit: helps you gain links from your followers.
30. Twitter Style Links: converts @x in your comments to links.
31. Autolink: automatically makes @x into links.
32. TickTweet: a cool plug-in that allows you to search for a keyword and show the tweets on your blog.
33. WP Twitter Pitch: allows others to pitch to you using Twitter DM right on your blog.
34. Twit It Up!: allows you users to tweet or re-tweet your blog posts.
35. Tweet Tweet: archive your Twitter updates in your database.
36. Twitterdoodle: allows you to create posts and categories based on Twitter keyword searches.
37. Automagic Twitter Profile URI: a cool plug-in that adds a Twitter profile link to your comments.
38. Tweetback: add trackback feature for Tweets to your blog.
39. Twitter updater w/ TinyURL: a cool Twitter updater plugin but includes TinyURL functionality as well.
40. Twitter To Wire: allows your twitter posts to show up in your buddypress wire.
41. WP My Twitter: post your blog posts to Twitter automatically.
42. Add Twitter Link to Comments: adds a twitter link to comments if the comment author uses an email connected to a twitter account.
43. Twitter Digest: a cool way to create a Twitter digest for your Wordpress blog.
44. Fresh From FriendFeed and Twitter: keep your blog content fresh with updates from FriendFeed and Twitter.
45. Twitter Auto Linker: Turns @[names] to links automatically.
46. Twitter User: a great plugin that makes it easy to link your post to your Twitter account.
47. LifeStream: a plug-in that makes it easy for your users to stalk you on social networks.
48. Twitter Friendly Links: creates Twitter friendly URLs from your blog posts.
49. Twitgets: adds a sidebar widget to display your Twitter Friends Timeline using Twitter’s flash scripts
50. Auto Tweet: adds a check-box to your posts, letting you choose which posts to send to Twitter.

There you have it. Lots of plugins to choose from, but what did you expect? We are talking about Twitter here. Please feel free to let me know if I have missed something.

15 Best Friendfeed Plugins for Wordpress

People may be obsessed with Twitter these days, but there is a lot of action going on FriendFeed. It’s a wonderful community that lets you get into conversations with other community members, share and learn from them as well. And thanks to the good community of Wordpress developers, you can bring Friendfeed to your Wordpress blog and strengthen your Wordpress community with Friendfeed Wordpress plugins.

If you are looking for a quick way to integrate Friendfeed into your Wordpress blog, here are 15 best Friendfeed plugins you should try:

1. FriendFeed Comments: This plugin will take the comments & ‘likes’ on your posts from FriendFeed and place them on the post that they’re related to.
2. Friendfeed Widget: bring Friendfeed to your sidebar fast.
3. PingPressFM: lets you share your content on 30+ social networks without too much trouble.
4. WP Greet Box: a wonderful plugin that lets you target Friendfeed visitors and maybe even give them a bait to subscribe to your blog.
5. Friendfeed Comments: another plugin that lets you display your Friendfeed comments on your blog.
6. FriendFeed Activity Widget: The FriendFeed Activity Widget is a simple WordPress widget that pulls your FriendFeed stream.
7. Post to Friendfeed: post your blog posts to Friendfeed fast with this plugin.
8. Fresh From FriendFeed and Twitter: use with caution but lets you add content from Twitter and Friendfeed to your blog.
9. BackType Connect: finds conversations related to your content and allows you to display the associated comments inline with your own. Works with Friendfeed and Twitter.
10. WP SUP: lets you post your posts to Friendfeed easily.
11. FriendFeed Lifestream Widget: grabs your latest activity from Friendfeed and shows it on your sidebar.
12. SocialFeed Widget: just enter your Friendfeed information and you are all set. Grabs your info from Friendfeed automatically.
13. About Me: About me is a sidebar widget that displays icon links to your profile pages on other social networking sites.
14. LifeStream: display all your activities from Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed on your blog.
15. Social Homes: lets you display your social homes on your blog.

There you have it. What’s your favorite Friendfeed?

Bring Twitter Discussions To Your Blog with Tweetboard

If you have been on Twitter lately, you have probably all those Alpha Testing requests by folks who are hoping to get a chance to test out tweetboard. So what is tweetboard anyway? It’s an innovative application based on Twitter platform that lets you bring the power of Twitter to your Wordpress blog. If you thought your users were engaged with your blog before, you are going to love how they interact with tweetboard.

Tweetboard grabs your latest Twitter updates and adds them to your website. Tweetboard sits on the top of your Wordpress blog (as a slide-in) as it’s a script and not a plug-in. Your readers can then use the board to communicate with you and comment on your posts. The conversations are shown in a nested format, allowing you and your users to get more out of your discussions.

What I love about tweetboard is the fact that it can drive lots of traffic to your blog. Every time someone decides to get involved in a conversation on your tweetboard, a link to that conversation is posted on their Twitter account. Depending on the topics you discuss on your blog, you could get lots of free traffic from your readers and tweeps. Your conversations are posted on Twitter using posted.at and inreply.to domains, so your twitter friends know what they are reading.

Ultimately, tweetboard is an innovative Twitter service that lets you bring the power of this great community to your blog. Tweetboard is so easy to install, and it doesn’t add too much load to your blog. Best of all, it gets your users engaged and can bring you lots of traffic. It seems like a no-brainer to me.

Social Maximizer Review

Taking time to start a Wordpress blog is only a small part of the process. You are going to have to spend time to create killer content, get links to your blog, and make your readers feel at home on your blog. One of the best ways to get links to your blog is by taking advantage of the power of the social media. Social bookmarking sites have the potential to drive you lots of traffic, and if you go after the do-follow ones, you are going to see benefits on the SERPs as well. You can always submit your site to top social bookmarking sites by hand, but that could take a while, and to be honest that’s not something I would focus my time on as a blogger. That’s where Social Maximizer comes in. It’s a cool, affordable social bookmarking service that lets you submit your web pages to close to a hundred bookmarking services without you having to worry about creating accounts and adding your pages one by one to all of those.

Social Maximizer makes it so easy to submit multiple pages to social bookmarking sites fast. All you have to do is enter your title and description variations, choose the sites you want your blog to show up on, set it and forget it. I use five variations for my own sites, and that’s really the best way to go. You don’t want all your listing to look the same, and since the system does all the job behind the scenes, you are not going to do too much extra work to have fairly unique listings on social bookmarking services.

All in all, if you are looking to build more links for your Wordpress blog but don’t want to spend too much time creating your social bookmarking accounts and submit your pages by hand, Social Maximizer is a decent service to try. It’s cheap and saves you time too.