On the Avenue

November 30, 2008

Plugins: Social Bookmarking

Posted at 5:51 AM

Tonight, @chrisbrogan asked for a *really* simple stumbleupon plugin instead of addthis/sharethis. I had been meaning to write a review of social bookmarking plugins, but what interested me more was his reference to research that says the “paradox of choice” actually cuts down on people using those bookmarking tools.

I haven’t seen the research, but I was discussing this same theory with Justin Kownacki at a recent Refresh Pittsburgh meeting. In my own blog reading, I find that I’m more likely to click on a bookmarking link if I’m given only one or two options than if I’m faced with an overwhelming choice of bookmarking sites.

If you’re wondering what I mean by “paradox of choice”, you can read The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, or scan the reviews. If you’re wondering what I mean by social bookmarking plugins, I’m talking about those image or text links at the end of a blog post to add/share/bookmark that post on social bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and many others:

Bookmarkify

The Criteria

Link Options

In Chris’s case, he only wants a link to StumbleUpon, which gives him the most traffic. Since he knows where people are finding his content, he wants to support them there. And since readers are more likely to click one link than two, he wants to drive his traffic to the best service rather than split it between several, or lose them to overwhelming choice.

“More” Link

However, some readers may have a preferred bookmarking site that differs from the author’s, so my criteria for a social bookmarking plugin is going to include the option to add to other services — a “more” link.

Customization

As a designer, a second criterion of mine is customization — whether through the plugin’s settings or my theme’s CSS and PHP code — since I don’t want the plugin to look the same on all of my site designs. In Chris’s case, he wants a big fat simple button. Since most social bookmarking plugins use small icons, this will probably need to be a custom graphic.

News Feed

Another consideration may be whether the plugin adds links to the blog’s feed or just to the site. I know that FeedBurner’s FeedFlare™ is added to both, but its text images are not customizable, nor aesthetically pleasing IMO.

The Plugins

To find the best social bookmarking plugin based on these criteria, I used Mashable’s “30+ Plugins to Make Your WordPress Blog More Social” as a guide. I chose nine plugins based on that list, and review them here in alphabetical order:

  1. Bookmarkify met all of my criteria.
  2. Bookmark Me includes an impressive list of international sites, but does not have a “more” option, nor does it add links to RSS feeds.
  3. I Love Social Bookmarking displays links in a drop down menu to save on load time. The settings provide good customization from within the admin panel, but to remove the plugin’s logo from your site, you will need to edit the image or your CSS. No RSS or “more” options.
  4. obsocialbookmarker was annoying just to install, and wasn’t any easier to set up. The filter which displays services by country seemed nifty, but only gave me three choices for USA. The International option let me choose “Stumble it”, but the rest of the customization options left much to be desired. No RSS or “more” options.
  5. Sociable allows ordering of site links, something I hadn’t yet considered, but no “more” link.
  6. Social Bookmarking RELOADED was a little difficult to customize, partly because I had to manually un-click each site link that I did not want. No “more” link or RSS feed options made me UNLOAD this one.
  7. Social Bookmarks is the plugin that Social Bookmarking RELOADED was based off of, but with different icons. I prefer RELOADED, but would not choose either plugin.
  8. SociBook was confusing to set up, and only partly because of the broken English. Customization through the administration panel is limited, but it does provide an easy way to use custom icons. There are no RSS or “more” options, and I couldn’t get the plugin to work on my test site (WordPress version 2.6.2).
  9. SocioFluid has a cool factor because it keeps the icons small until the reader mouses over them, similar to the Mac taskbar. A decent amount of customization can be done in the settings page, but no RSS or “more” options, and the plugin didn’t work correctly on my test site.

So which plugin is best?

Unsurprisingly, I found Bookmarkify best met my criteria. It has an excellent selection of links, including the requisite “more” link, and also a link to share the post by email. Most of the plugins I tested include the most popular social bookmarking sites, but if you need a less common site, you may need to find a specific plugin that includes it.

By default, Bookmarkify’s code is included in the RSS, but you can check a box to exclude it from the feed. As far as customization, Bookmarkify’s settings page provides the choice of placement at either the top or bottom of posts, or a custom option which requires template modification. The settings also list all of the relevant style classes to customize with CSS — these do not include the More Box, but by viewing the site code you can find out these classes easily. And since the images are all hosted in the blog’s plugins folder, they can be customized.

The only feature that this plugin lacks is the ability to chose where to display its code within the blog, such as single posts, single pages, home page, excerpts, archives etc. The settings page does offer the PHP code to call the plugin, so presumably this can be achieved by editing the theme’s template pages.

I’ve activated Bookmarkify on this blog, as seen below.

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November 18, 2008

Plugins: Flickr

Posted at 12:26 AM

Last week, @socialgumbo asked What are your favorite WP plugins and why? I tweeted that this would make a good blog post, which is something I’ve been thinking about since my WordPress session at PodCamp Pittsburgh 3. Developing WordPress sites for podcasts, businesses and now a personal blog has given me a chance to use a variety of plugins, and I do have a core set of plugins that I add to most WordPress sites that I set up.

However, I’m constantly learning about new plugins, including a few that I’m currently testing. Instead of writing a post that will be incomplete by tomorrow, I created a Plugins category to house these posts. I’ll post about individual plugins or groups of related plugins, and add them to this category. Today I’m posting about two plugins that make it easier to add Flickr photos to posts, starting with one of those new ones that I’m testing.

Photo Dropper

I’m testing the Photo Dropper plugin, a Flickr plugin that searches for Creative Commons licensed photos – images that are licensed for shared use – and lets you drop them into your posts – right from your dashboard with just 1 click. Flickr itself has an advanced search and configurable “Blog This” feature, but Photo Dropper claims to do this from within my WordPress editor, which should be a productivity boost.

In the settings for Photo Dropper, I can check a box to search only photos that are licensed to be used commercially. Since this is not a commercial blog, I’m going to uncheck that. I’ll change the images per page from 5 to 50, leave the box to sort photos by “most interesting” unchecked, and save my settings. Now I’ll search for a photo tagged “PCPGH3” and drop it into this post:

The Panel
Creative Commons License photo credit: davefishernc

Not bad. Photo Dropper loaded quickly even with 50 thumbnails per page, and let me choose from small, medium and large sizes of the photos. The photo and caption you see above is what the plugin posted without any edits, although I would normally customize it like this:

The Panel
The Panel
Originally uploaded by David Fisher

Flickr Draft Post

Flickr’s built-in “Blog This” feature allows me to customize a template that comes close to my customizations, but I still have to tweak some code to get exactly what I want, especially for images that have no description or lack a descriptive title. But I wouldn’t consider using Blog This without the the Flickr Draft Post plugin, which saves the post as a draft post instead of publishing directly from Flickr, giving me the opportunity to make those edits.

Considering that Blog This is currently not working for this blog (I’m using WordPress version 2.7-beta1 at the time of this posting), I will not use it here, but will continue to use it with Flickr Draft Post on the Shopping Bloomfield blog, which is currently running WordPress version 2.6.3. For reference, this is how I customize my post template:

<p>
<a href="{photo_url}" title="{photo_title}" target="_blank"><img src="{photo_src}" border="0" alt="{photo_desc}" title="{photo_title}" /></a><br />
<small><span class="caption">{photo_title}</span><br />
<span class="byline">Originally uploaded by <a href="{uploader_profile}" target="_blank">{uploader_name}</a></span></small>
</p>

So which method is best?

Photo Dropper is the easiest method I’ve found for inserting Flickr images directly into the WordPress editor, and if a later version allows customization of the post template, it will be close to perfect. If you’re not particular about markup, this plugin is for you.

If you do want to customize your markup, I recommend using Blog This with the Flickr Draft Post plugin. Once you set up your Flickr account with your blog info and customized layout, the time you’ll save editing markup will make up for having to cut and paste the code from a draft post.

Of course, this may all change tomorrow.

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November 12, 2008

NaBloPoMo Moderation Regurgitation

Posted at 11:43 PM

Earlier today, Norman Huelsman wrote a post asking about NaBloPoMo. I answered, but he still hasn’t approved my comment. I don’t understand why Mr. Dirby would moderate comments, but then I also don’t understand why he drives a truck and dates women. I’m cross-posting my comment on my blog, since you can’t see it on his:

I posted every day for the first week of NaBloPoMo, because I wanted to have a few posts up before I told anyone about my blog. It was harder than I thought because I refused to “cheat”, and forced myself to write posts that I was proud of.

Normally I would only post when I have a specific topic to cover (I keep a list for my personal blog and Shopping Bloomfield), but participating in NaBloPoMo required me to leave that comfort zone.

Towards the end of the week, I started posting later and later — I published one minute before midnight on Thursday, and Friday’s post didn’t go up until Saturday morning. I gave up on Saturday because blogging was taking too much time every day, but on Sunday I realized that posting to The G Spod counts. I posted to Shopping Bloomfield on Monday and Tuesday, so I’ve only missed one day of NaBloPoMo. I’ll probably write a personal post today.

I think that most bloggers should post more often, so NaBloPoMo is a fun source of extrinsic motivation. However, some bloggers may write subpar posts just to keep up, and that can weaken a blog. I wouldn’t do NaBloPoMo just to do it.

**UPDATE**

Approved.

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November 8, 2008

Social Media Success: Panacea81

Posted at 12:36 AM

This Election Day, I was looking for political Star Wars satire when I somehow found one of Panacea81’s YouTube videos. I clicked through to YouTube and watched a few more, because for some reason I have always enjoyed watching how-to videos — even if I don’t want to actually know how to, say, apply eye makeup for a pink smokey look.

YouTube Preview Image

Panacea81, a.k.a. Lauren Luke got her start selling makeup products on eBay, using photos of her eye to show the application of the makeup. When she started getting requests from customers who wanted to know how to properly apply the makeup, it just made sense to do tutorials on YouTube, showing how to achieve different looks using the products.

According to her YouTube channel, Lauren has been a member since June 28, 2007, and at the time of this posting has 120,347 subscribers. A May, 2008 BBC One documentary reported her YouTube ad revenue as being in the thousands of dollars a month.

YouTube Preview Image

The most popular UK YouTube user doesn’t edit her videos, because she doesn’t know how. In some videos, we can see her turn the camera off and back on, the realism of the rough cut being precisely what viewers appreciate about Panacea81. It was her realism and enthusiasm for their products that first caught the attention of UK cosmetic company Barry M, who soon realized that she had a unique talent for showcasing their products’ wide range of colors. According to Dean Mero, Managing Director for Barry M:

At first we were just chuffed that an independent reviewer like Lauren loved Barry M so much! As a brand we’re known for our range of colours which Lauren uses beautifully. But then, after we watched more of Lauren’s videos and spoke to her, we realised just what a fantastic talent she had and what a remarkable and empowering story she has to tell.

According to Lauren:

I’ve always wanted to be a make up artist and to make a living from working in the beauty industry. Barry M simply asked me what I needed in terms of support whist allowing me to remain at college to gain my qualifications and to work independently. My sole intention when I started my YouTube tutorials was to help other women like me to feel confident and to look good – whoever they are. I’m not a glamorous make up model and, because of that, women seem to appreciate me more. And it’s lovely to share my videos with them and to give them ideas.

Lauren’s Barry M videos are on the Barry M Tutorials page as well as YouTube, and show Lauren still in her bedroom, still not editing her videos. I’d recommend a condenser mic to cut down on the background noise, but I have to give proper respect to Barry M for not trying to change what Lauren’s viewers like about her.

According to Panacea81’s Twitter profile, she is currently in New York filming with BBC and picking out colors for her new makeup line. Zoom Zoom!

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November 6, 2008

Background Prostitution

Posted at 11:59 PM

Recently, custom Twitter background images have become a popular design feature — specifically, backgrounds that give more information on the Twitterer and link to a website and email address. Because Twitter profiles allow only limited customization, a basic design standard has been unofficially developed to take advantage of different browser resolutions. Generally, this includes a top bar with a logo or name aligned left, and a sidebar box containing a headshot, information and links.

Good background images integrate well with the Twitter profile layout, and better ones look good while doing it. One of the best Twitter backgrounds I’ve seen is on Chris Brogan’s profile, because it accomplishes both while maintaining his website’s branding.

main-bg
Click on the image above to see what a good Twitter background looks like, or go to Chris Brogan’s Twitter profile to see it live.

Chris uses a different photo of himself than he did for his avatar, which is a smart move. My only suggestion for Chris would be to decrease the leading (line spacing) of the text, since I can’t see his URL and email address on my MacBook at 1280 x 800 resolution (I have three Firefox toolbars open, but that’s probably about average for Twitter users).

I am a social media whore.

Instead of practicing what I preach and creating my own Twitter background image, I’ve decided to sell myself. Actually, after reading Rob Blatt’s post “Selling ads on my Twitter page” in September, I decided to sign up with Twittad and see how much somebody was willing to pay me to use background space that I wasn’t using. Basically, Twittad lets Twitterers choose a duration and price for their profile, and advertisers can then purchase the spots. After researching prices that other Twitterers with a similar amount of followers were asking, I decided on one month for $20.

I neglected to fill out my Twittad profile, and I forgot about it until today, when I got an email that my profile had sold. The buyer? Twittad. I don’t know if my profile finally sold because Twittad is launching a new advertising campaign on their own platform, or if it’s because I have a few hundred more followers than I did when I set the price, but I accepted the ad and set it as my Twitter background:

bfc560
View my Twitter profile to see this ad live (at least for one month).

As Adam Ostrow pointed out on Mashable, there are a number of problems that Twittad has to contend with, the first of which is that page backgrounds are not clickable and there is no easy way for a third-party service to track any meaningful metrics other than impressions. I don’t expect Twitter advertising to be a major source of revenue for any advertisers, but it is a fun branding platform.

In fact, I’m now considering buying ad space to advertise The G Spod. I think designing a background and choosing the right profile spot will be a fun way to spend my extra $20.

**UPDATE**

I decided to donate my Twittad proceeds to the ASPCA.

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November 5, 2008

Yes We Still Can

Posted at 9:50 PM

I’m happy with the election results. Actually, I’m quite optimistic. Regardless of how well Obama does in office, and I hope he does well, we’ve shown that the voters of this country do have a voice. By electing our first non-white president, we’ve already made change.

But some things aren’t changing fast enough. As of this writing, votes are still being counted in California on Prop 8, the state constitutional amendment to define “marriage” as between a man and a woman. If you’re not familiar with Prop 8 or the lies that are being used to pass it, please read about it here.

The day that should have dawned today is not far off.
—Kate Kendell, live in front San Francisco City Hall

As I write this, San Franciscans are holding a candlelight vigil at City Hall, and are not giving up. I just heard about a rally in West Hollywood, and @NoOnProp8 linked to events all over the state. Justin Kownacki thinks Prop 8 will be revoked down the line, when our generation assumes more responsibility in government. I’m optimistic enough to agree.

YouTube Preview Image

But I’m not going to end this post with optimism. Believe me, I’d love to — I could end it right here and call it a NaBloPoMo day. But while following the fight against Prop 8, I found a great new (to me) blog called Extreme Measures. In his personal blog, USMC Logistics Officer M. Matthew Phelps wrote a post explaining the hypocrisy of Prop 8 much better than I can.

In this post, Matthew shares a conversation he had about Prop 8 to shed some light on the type of people who buy into this propaganda. In the conversation, “Mr. X”, a supporter of Prop 8, claims that i voted yes on 8 because i do not think that this whole issue should be fought about for a damn title…I think everyone should have the same rights and the same liberties, but why must everyone have the same fuckin title.

But when Mr. X is asked if he would accept a different title…

4:05pm
Mr. X
well i told you why i voted yes, i cant be any clearer, if someone would fix the civil union situation and create a more legit civil union status…I would be 100% for that. But I dont understand why we are fighting over a title of marriage.

4:05pm
Matthew
would you be willing to get a civil union?

would that say about your relationship what you want it to say?

4:06pm
Mr. X
does a title of marriage say what you want it to say…if the rights and liberties are all the same then whats with the title

4:06pm
Matthew
i’m asking you

would you be satisfied if the relationship you had with the person you loved were called a civil union?

4:07pm
Mr. X
a relationship is a relationship….. a title of marriage doesnt make one relationship more of a relationship than another

4:07pm
Matthew
if the title isn’t significant, why should it be reserved for just one group of people?

4:08pm
Mr. X
im done… im going for my run

4:08pm
Matthew
why do you get to say it’s OK for you to use it, but not for anyone else?

4:08pm
Mr. X
i just told you matt, its not about a title for me
i dont give a shit about the title

4:08pm
Matthew
then answer the question

**SPOILER ALERT**

Mr. X doesn’t answer the question.

I guess he didn’t get that memo about change.

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November 4, 2008

Optimistic Discharged Composition

Posted at 9:55 PM

Since his fever and headache are gone, and his blood cultures show no signs of infection, G was discharged from the hospital today. The nurses were sad to see him go, but this isn’t our first return home from a hospital stay, and may not be our last.

That may have read as pessimism, but we’re both feeling very optimistic today, for several reasons — a few seconds ago, Twitter erupted with the news that Barack Obama swept the 2008 Presidential Election. I’m hopeful for Obama’s presidency, but I’m never optimistic about politicians.

My real friends give me real hope.

DJ Lunchbox messaged me yesterday, asking if it would be cool if he were to visit G in the hospital today. Well, since we were discharged before Lunchbox got out of work, he came to our house instead. And since we were all hungry, the fridge was empty and my car battery is dead, he drove us to two supermarkets to do what will be the bulk of our grocery shopping for the month.

Lunchbox has actually done this once before, and then even cooked us dinner with the groceries. Today being Tuesday, he had to run to make the 8:00 live taping of the Wrestling Mayhem Show, so all he got was a ham sandwich on the go. Sure the guy is appropriately named to contain ham sandwiches, but his kind of friendship deserves something more substantial. He’ll take a rain check on the meal, but I thought it might be appropriate to end today’s post with a composition from his blog, Thoughtful Riot:

Good morning Captain
Glad to see your still with us
Stay on your feet sir

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November 3, 2008

TV Party

Posted at 9:48 PM

G is feeling much better today, after his headache that lasted over two days finally ended with this morning’s plasmapheresis. Tonight, Norman Jeanne visited us in the hospital to watch Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a Monday-night tradition of ours. In fact, we’ve had the television on a lot today, although G normally doesn’t like to watch TV in the hospital. At home, he likes to relax to television after work, fall asleep to it at night, and keeps it on in the background more often than not.

But not in the hospital. I would think it would be the perfect distraction, a comfort to make his stay feel more like home, but he feels very differently. I’ve asked him about it a few times, and he’s explained that watching TV in here reminds him of home and the outside world, and the freedoms that he normally enjoys. Rather than being a distraction from his situation, the very time-constrained nature of television promotes awareness of time passing in 30-minute increments.

I try to understand, but I’m not sure if I would feel the same way in his situation. What I am sure of is that if I was the patient, I’d still be laying here in this hospital, typing on this MacBook, and probably bitching on this blog.

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November 2, 2008

Waiting

Posted at 3:54 PM

I just finished up some work and managed my inbox down to 0, and I’m feeling a little low on energy. I went down to the hospital cafeteria to get a green tea, since I don’t like to drink coffee while G is in the hospital, but picked up the more expensive Odwalla Superfood™ instead. Why? Because I’m not sure that even the small amount of caffeine in green tea is what I need right now, but I can use some antioxidants, vitamin C and other nutrients. Can’t we all?

I also grabbed the Superfood because I’ve had one before, and I can’t remember when. There may have been a story involved, and I’m waiting to recall it. If I can’t, this post may go nowhere. I can’t think in this waiting room anyway; I’m going to go for a walk to get away from the crying, germy baby…

…I remember. I had a bottle of this stuff when I was recovering from food poisoning, and I didn’t feel like eating. I was working from the Lawrenceville Crazy Mocha with Justin Kownacki, and there is no story involved.

My walk took me to the chapel, where I’ve gone before at times like this.

It’s very quiet, and always empty. This is a solemn place from which to blog. I prayed, I read, I listened, and I waited; these are the things to do here. I prayed for G, who has been having a difficult time today, physically and emotionally. I prayed that he does the same, because I don’t have the answers that he’s waiting for.

Part of me thinks I should go to Church, and another part of me doesn’t agree with formal religion. I think both parts are waiting for each other…

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November 1, 2008

Readmitted

Posted at 8:59 PM

I’m writing my first NaBloPoMo post from The Western Pennsylvania Hospital, where G has been readmitted with a slight fever, a common sign of infection. Central line infections are common and he’s had several before, so we assumed that was the case when his temperature went up to 100.5 on Thursday night.

Doctors never assume; they test. To test for a line infection, blood cultures are taken from both the catheter and from a vein elsewhere in the body. If he does have an infection, he’ll get treated with the super-antibiotic vancomycin.

Since he would be in the hospital as an outpatient on Friday morning anyway, we spent the better part of Thursday night taking his temperature. Every 15 minutes or so, I would hover over him and silently watch the digital digits change, praying that they stop before a certain number and thinking how important numbers are in life.

We did end up paging the doctor on call, but luckily his temperature went down before we had to go to the emergency room.

The Emergency Room sucks, but readmission isn’t much better.

Being readmitted is a lot like being admitted for the first time, except you already have a bracelet. He was admitted over a month ago, discharged almost a week later, and he’s been an outpatient since. He was here yesterday, and he’s scheduled to be here on Monday morning. He’s here a lot. He knows a lot of nurses, and they know him.

But when he’s readmitted, nobody knows who he is. He’s in the system, he has a bracelet and has even memorized his medical file number, but none of the nurses or doctors know anything about him — especially on a Saturday night. Many of the residents don’t even know what TTP is, so G has to explain it to them.

And reexplain it. He has to answer the same questions again and again; questions I assume wouldn’t need to be asked had they read his charts. Tonight, they can’t even find his charts. I don’t want to complain about West Penn Hospital, because our experiences here have been far better than what I’ve heard about other hospitals, but I wonder every time why such an advanced institution doesn’t use their technology better.

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