Wordpress Plugins: PingpressFM

I have been using Wordpress for some time now, and thought I would talk about just one of the plugins I use currently called PingpressFM. If you are familiar with the service called Ping.fm, and you use this service for microblogging updates to sites such as Twitter, Tumblr and others, and you also run a Wordpress blog, then this is the plugin for you!

Now, if you use Ping.fm, you know you can go there and input up to 140 characters, including links, and it will send out to the various services that you are subscribed to, automatically. PingpressFM works the same way by accessing Ping.fm and sending your blog post title to each of the services you subscribe to along with the permalink to the blog post. In this way, you don’t have to make a separate post to Ping.fm or your other microblogging services as this plugin does it for you as soon as you publish your post.

You can download this plugin from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pingpressfm/

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Podcaster Training: Should I Setup a Web Site or Blog?

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This is a question that is asked, most often, by newbies and novices in the New Media arena. Should I program a full web site or should I just setup a blog site, I really think I need both! Well, to answer that question, here are a few things to consider:

In order to setup a full HTML based web site, you will need to know how to program in HTML or have an HTML Editor and know how to use that or even hire a programmer. Learning HTML is not hard to do, it just takes time, like most anything that is worth doing. Hiring a programmer could cost you by the hour or flat rate, however, you are still talking out of pocket expenses for maintenance, changes, etc. Doing a full web site also will require a little creativity on your part. With site layout, design, content and graphics, you will have a lot on your plate to think about, even with hiring a programmer, as they will need guidance and direction while programming your site.

Setting up a blog, especially today, is relatively easy to do and fairly quick to do. Even someone with a little imagination can setup a blog site and make it look great and functional. There are a number of platforms you can use such as Wordpress, Drupal, Typepad and Blogger. Depending on how much time and effort you want to spend on your blog site, along with what functionality you want, will dictate which platform you choose. Out of all of the platforms available, Wordpress seems to be the number one choice for most new bloggers. It is easy to use, easy to setup, offers a variety of themes and plugins and of course, is free! Wordpress offers a hosted blog site where they take care of the hosting of your blog, the bandwidth, everything. All you do, is set it up and start blogging. For most beginners, this is a great starting point, so that you can keep everything free and don’t have to worry about paying for a host each month or year, domain name, and the like.

For those that have there own domain name and hosting plans, Wordpress offers a self hosted version of their platform that allows for even more expandability and functionality. The self hosted version is just like the hosted version, except you have the entire script on your own hosted server and you take care of setting it up, hosting it, bandwidth, etc. With the self hosted version, you can add as many themes and plugins as you like to make your blog site like a blog or even like a web site!

Ok, consider this, you want a web site that will give you the freedom to “make it your own” and you also want a blog so that you can keep your visitors, clients, customers, whoever, up to date easily with the happenings of your business, podcast or even your life! Right? The web site will take time to get off the ground because of having to be “built”, programmed, designed, approved (by you, of course) and then sent out to the search engines, promoted…you get the idea I think. Now, take Wordpress, add a custom theme that you pick out from the hundreds available to you, add the right plugins to give you the interaction and functionality you are looking for, add your own flare for graphics, fonts, etc., add separate pages for “departments” or areas of your podcast or business, point your domain name to your Wordpress site (if you have one) and then let Wordpress do the SEO (search engine optimization) for you as it silently sends your new blog site out to the search engines, while you promote your new site and start sending people to it yourself.

Wordpress lets you do all of the design and customization, posting, management, etc. from a dashboard page. It’s layout will let even the beginner to use Wordpress to get started right away. Even if you don’t have a creative bone in your body, I’ll bet you will be able to find a ready built theme that will make your blog site come to life and you can start using the site instead of fretting over design specs, programming fees and the like.

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