Category Archives: Blog

A Solution for Wikipedia’s Money Problems… The Flattr Button

December 9, 2011Marketingbig gift, donations, flattr, gen y, meme, microfinance, small gift, social buttons, wikipediaBloomy121147

Wikipedia has been soliciting donations from its many readers through ads placed above their articles. These “appeals to emotion”, in my opinion are viewed more as a joke than they are taken seriously, thus the recently popular meme going around showcasing the various Wikipedia members next to titles of weird pages, or funny quotes.

WHY THESE ADS?

Wikipedia wishes to solicit ”small gift” donations to raise money, and more importantly, avoid the imposition that often accompanies “big gift” donors. My solution is simple, Wikipedia needs to add a Flattr button.

ADD A FLATTR BUTTON

Instead of running these ads, which Gen Y laughs at, they should take a different approach. They shoud speak to Gen Y in their langauge.

They should add a Flattr button to the top right of their posts. It takes up much less space than an advertisement, is less intrusive, and people will be intrigued by it. Flattr isn’t a well known service (although it should be).

I imagine that the click through rate on a Flattr button would be much higher than the advertisements that Wikipedia is currently running. This is because the Flattr button is mysterious and unfamiliar. People want to know what this new social button is. They will click on it, set up an account, and then need a place to test it out.

There is your donation right there.

CONCLUSION

If Wikipedia is looking for small gift donations Flattr is the perfect partner. They should put a Flattr button on each page, help launch a new micro-payment platform, and in the process possibly raise some money without the annoyance of running ads.

Wikipedia could even keep the Flattr button up indefinitely. It is a less aggressive way of saying, “Hey, I like to provide you with this content, but could you help by contributing a little bit every so often.”

Edit Note: Also, by utilizing a button with a counter it identifies that others have given, thus influencing others to give. This is something that the current ads fail to achieve.

How To Add a Flattr Button To Your Self Hosted WordPress Site

December 9, 2011WordPressbutton, flattr, javascript, micropayments, template tags, wordpressBloomy121147

Today I spent about an hour trying to figure out how I could add a Flattr button to my self hosted WordPress blog. I found a complicated post by WP Engineer, and Flattr provides a page where you can make buttons, but they didn’t provide any hard code for doing so. It wasn’t until I found their Javascript API that I was able to put together the code myself. I would check out all of the resources above to make sure you can’t use one of their methods before you attempt mine.

STEP ONE – ADD THE JAVASCRIPT

The first thing you need to do when adding a Flattr button to your self-hosted WordPress site is add this little snippet of code to your footer.

<script type="text/javascript">
/* <![CDATA[ */
    (function() {
        var s = document.createElement('script'), t = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];

        s.type = 'text/javascript';
        s.async = true;
        s.src = 'http://api.flattr.com/js/0.6/load.js?mode=auto';

        t.parentNode.insertBefore(s, t);
    })();
/* ]]> */
</script>

STEP TWO – UNDERSTAND THE BUTTON CODE

After you have added the above code to your footer to enable the javascript you can add the code that will output the button.

For the most part this code looks like regular html but it also has some random parameters in the middle. Here is what the code looks like before you populate the parameters.

<a class="FlattrButton" style="display:none;"
    title=""
    rev="flattr;uid:USER-ID;category:MEDIA-CATEGORY;tags:TAGS;"
    href="PAGE-URL"

    A DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTENT

</a>

STEP THREE – ADDING THE PARAMETERS

As you can see, we need to populate certain areas with the appropriate information. To do this we can use the built in WordPress template tags to output the various parameters needed. The tags I used are as follows.

TITLE –> php the_title(); ?>
URL –> php the_permalink(); ?>
DESCRIPTION –> php the_excerpt(); ?>
TAGS –> php
$posttags = get_the_tags();
if ($posttags) {
foreach($posttags as $tag) {
echo $tag->name . ‘, ’;
}
}
?>

The last template tag is a little complicated, but you can easily past it into the code. The final code for rendering the button on your posts or pages will look like this.

[sws_red_box box_size="500"] NOTE: You need to add your user id or username where it says USER-ID in the below code. [/sws_red_box]

<a class="FlattrButton" style="display:none;"
	    title="<?php the_title(); ?>"
	    rev="flattr;uid:USER-ID;category:text;tags:<?php
		$posttags = get_the_tags();
		if ($posttags) {
		foreach($posttags as $tag) {
		echo $tag->name . ', &nbsp;';
		    }
		}
		?>;"
	    href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"

    <?php the_excerpt(); ?>
	</a>

STEP THREE – ADD CODE TO TEMPLATE

Simply paste the final code into your template within the loop, and you will render a nice Flattr button to start earning you money.

You can view other parameters here if you would like to make the button look differently or change other parameters. Let me know if this works for your WordPress powered website, and if you have any suggestions of how to improve the code!

Why We Chose Yoast’s WordPress SEO Plugin

October 25, 2011Marketing, Web / Mobilemeta box, multisite, plugin, post type, seo, sitemap, taxonomy, yoastBloomy121147

I’ve tried almost all of the major WordPress SEO plugins on the market and one of them seems to reign supreme. Yoast’s SEO.

The Depth and breadth of Yoast’s commitment to this plugin is remarkable, and he continues to give it away for free. Others have gone so far as to blatantly plagiarize his code in an attempt to commercialize it because they know they can’t come up with a better alternative. My reasoning here.

Pages: 1 2

My Favorite WordPress Resources

October 22, 2011Blogbest of, list, plugins, resources, themes, tools, wordpressBloomy121147

I started playing with WordPress a little over a year ago. I admittedly went a little bit nuts (some would say overboard), and I’ve been thoroughly obsessed with WordPress ever since.

I’ve spent hours, upon hours, upon hours on the web looking for the best WordPress themes, plugins, and resources, and I definitely think I’ve reached the fringe of what’s out there. For this reason I think I’ll put some of the more impressive themes, plugins, and tools I’ve found into this comprehensive list to try and save others some time. Soooo HERE IT IS!

Themes – Your Website’s Clothes

Themes are like clothes for you website. Without a theme your website is clothed in the standard issue WordPress uniform, the Twenty-Eleven theme. This is a great theme, but most users desire a more personalized theme that caters to their needs. Some of the most innovative, stylish, and cutting edge WordPress themes can be found at the following sites:

FREE

COMMERCIAL

These sites all provide you with an extremely user friendly panel to control every functional / stylistic component of your website without delving into the code. They have great customer support, provide fairly regular updates, and deliver fantastic value for what they charge. For a fairly comprehensive review of these providers visit Smashing Magazine.

With a custom theme (and plugins) you can customize you website to be almost anything you want it to be; anything from an e-commerce site, to a recipe blog, or even a social network.

Plugins – Your Website’s Gadgets

While themes are like clothes, plugins are more akin to gadgets and accessories. Plugins extend the core capabilities of your website, and let you do ANYTHING you want to with your website. If you can think of a way to extend your website, there is most likely a plugin for it. Here are some resources for some plugins (some free and some commercial) that are truly exceptional, and can bring your website to an entirely new level without requiring you to understand technology.

WordPress Help

You’re going to need a lot of help once you start your website. Not because WordPress is difficult to use, but because you’re going to want to travel further down the rabbit hole. WordPress is addictive, and the second you realize how much access you have to the entire internet-viewing-world the more you are going to want to blog.

The first place you can always go for help is the WordPress Codex. Should you be unable to find a solution there, you can easily go to one of the following resources to find a solution. Some of these websites are WordPress support communities, some are personal blogs, and others are just websites dedicated to WordPress.

Other Tools

You’re going to need to amass a small collection of tools for managing and maintaining your website. Once you get more comfortable with all the scary tech aspects that go into running a website, here are a couple that are free and easy to use tools that will assist you on a daily basis:

Quix
Themergency Taxonomy / Post Type Generator
Firefox
Filezilla
FireBug
Gimp
Text Editor – NotePad ++
Adobe Browser Lab
Xampp

Steve Jobs Innovations Infographic

October 21, 2011Blogapple, macintosh, steve jobsBloomy121147

I found this really cool infographic site called Visualy which is an endless source of amusement for me right now. I’ve collected a ton of interesting infographics on college life that i’ll be using for The Campus Companion, but i also found a ton of insightful infographics on other topics.

Now that the media frenzy that was Steve Jobs’ death is over I thought I’d share this infographic. It’s amazing what can be accomplished over the course of several decades.

First Post of My Professional Life

October 15, 2011BlogBlog, css tricks, development, digging into wordpress, first post, moleskine, professionalBloomy121147

I’ve always been partial to writing in a Moleskine instead of online. However, since I’m spending so much time putting this website together I might as well weave in a professional blog so I can keep track of my professional life as it develops over time.

So here is my first post, short and sweet.

Today I found a really fantastic website called CSS Tricks, and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite websites to try and learn css trickery. I didn’t know this before but one of the owners authored Digging Into WordPress. I wish they were offering it for free because from the several page sample they provide it seems like an amazing resource. Unfortunately I am broke. Maybe in the future.

Jon Blumenfeld

Jon Blumenfeld's personal website, blog, and online CV