WordPress Widgets

Alex King

1Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Introduction

• Background

• History with WordPress

• Crowd Favorite

2Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Agenda

• WordPress Overview

• WordPress Widgets

• Demo ShareThis, Lijit, Twitter,Popularity Contest

• CMS Integration

• Other Benefits

• Resources

• Q & A

3Tuesday, November 4, 2008

WordPress

• Blogging system

• CMS

• Open Source

• Customizable (Themes, Plugins)

• Widgets standard in 2.2 (May 2007)

4Tuesday, November 4, 2008

WordPress Widgets

• Written in PHP, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript

• Uses WordPress APIs

• Added by Plugin or Theme

• Settings (title, options, etc.)

5Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Demos

6Tuesday, November 4, 2008

ShareThis

• Traditional widget delivery

• WordPress specific settings

• Coming soon: integrated registration and configuration within WordPress

7Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Lijit• Delivers features of their standard

JavaScript widget

• User registration and login from the WordPress interface

• WordPress specific settings

• Access Lijit stats and preferences from WordPress interface

8Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Twitter Tools

• API integration vs. Flash/JavaScript widget

• Two way integration between WordPress and Twitter

• Delivers Twitter content from local datastore

• Twitter content embedded in HTML source

9Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Popularity Contest

• No 3rd party data or service

• Records and mines local data

• Provides sidebar widgets

• Local options and settings

• Local reports

10Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Tight Integration

• WordPress specific settings

• WordPress-style UI and interactions

• Leverage/connect to local data

• APIs make it happen

11Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Other Benefits

• Large publisher base

• Publisher control

• Performance: local data vs. remote data

• Content is indexed by search engines

12Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Distribution

• Downloadable plugins

• Many sources including WordPress.org (easier in 2.7)

• Significant publisher base

• Passionate community

13Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Resources

• WordPress Widget APIhttp://automattic.com/code/widgets/api/

• WordPress Pluginshttp://wordpress.org/extend/plugins

14Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Q & A

http://crowdfavorite.com

WordPress Development, Design & Consulting

15Tuesday, November 4, 2008