Wordpress.com's Follow and Like - Anyone Thought of This as a Plugin?
WPMU DEV Community
Wordpress.com's Follow and Like - Anyone Thought of This as a Plugin?
Elite
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georgef
Member
—
16th October 2011 (7 months ago)
Not sure if this is something that Wordpress will release, but I see they have a really cool feature to follow and like blogs within the network and get email subscriptions from that particular blog.
I can see this as a super powerful feature for those who want to focus more on blog content vs a social network extension like Buddypress does.
What's the thoughts on developing a plugin that can do this across a blog network? Has anyone thought of this (the community here or staff) or know of something similar available?
Not sure if this is something that Wordpress will release, but I see they have a really cool feature to follow and like blogs within the network and get email subscriptions from that particular blog.
I can see this as a super powerful feature for those who want to focus more on blog content vs a social network extension like Buddypress does.
What's the thoughts on developing a plugin that can do this across a blog network? Has anyone thought of this (the community here or staff) or know of something similar available?
@georgef - No, I've not got to try it. But, I have another thought.
Instead of "Follow" via Inbox, why not let people to "Follow" via their social media's individual account. Yes, for instance, I can "Follow" any blog site by using my Facebook account, such that, any new post from the blog site I follow will deliver to my facebook personal page. And there, I can reply or comment on it from my facebook personal page and be delivered back to the blog post as comment as well.
Rather than showing all the bloggers "Like" this blog site, we can show the no. of followers from "Bloggers", "Facebook", "Twitter" or any other social media platform.
This will be much powerful and we can communicate to individually from different platforms and our "WordPress" is the centralized source of contents.
Is like we have the WordPress Comment Plus which allow users to comment via different social media platforms. There, we can ditch the Facebook page as we can communicate directly with their personal account page.
@freedom thanks for the feedback and yes, I agree with what you are saying. When you log into Wordpress.com though, there is a different feel to the follow button as you don't have to enter your email address, it just automatically happens, so great to combine many subscriptions into one.
What you suggest will help social interaction, but I see the follow feature a great tool to have as part of a blog network internally.
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Sales & Support Pro
—
17th October 2011 (7 months ago)
#
Hiya guys!
This is something I've thought about a few times lately... there are tons of features on WordPress.com that many network owners would like but unfortunately aren't released by WP.com as plugins :(
The follow feature is probably one of the most basic but useful features for networks and would definitely be a cool thing to have.
I'll pass this to some members of the team for us to think on....
@Phil - Wow...4 members tagged and it is definitely something worthwhile to develop. Do update us on your team's thoughts and I will be happy to "Follow" the progress in this thread regularly. Thank you.
+1 for this. I was green with envy when wp.com put that out. The functionality is great and having being able to offer that to my bloggers would be awesome.
Yeah I only logged back in there last week for the first time in a while, there's definitely a ton of cool new stuff in there. (looks like they might have gotten some inspiration from Edublogs too! lol)
If there could be a follow feature that combines multiple subscriptions into a daily email for example, that integrates with either subscribe by email or the newsletter plugin, that would simply rock!
I guess it's just really controlling the RSS subscriptions across the board?
hm, the LIKE functions (as in LIKE a whole blog) sounds kinda like the "Post Voting" plugin available here. Maybe it can be extended with a LIKE for the whole blog?
The FOLLOW function doesn't seem to be doing anything else than the "Subscribe by Email" plugin does or am I mistaken? If I am right, all we need is to upgrade the subscribe by email plugin to insert a follow button in a place of our choice.#
Having the ability for our multisite users to "follow" certain blogs WITHIN the framework of our network and not via an outside source like RSS or simple bookmarking is a highly requested feature on our site.
Responses (22)
Member — 16th October 2011 (7 months ago) #
+ 1 for Follow and Like :)
Member — 17th October 2011 (7 months ago) #
@freedom Great... have you had a play with it on wordpress.com yet?
Member — 17th October 2011 (7 months ago) #
@georgef - No, I've not got to try it. But, I have another thought.
Instead of "Follow" via Inbox, why not let people to "Follow" via their social media's individual account. Yes, for instance, I can "Follow" any blog site by using my Facebook account, such that, any new post from the blog site I follow will deliver to my facebook personal page. And there, I can reply or comment on it from my facebook personal page and be delivered back to the blog post as comment as well.
Rather than showing all the bloggers "Like" this blog site, we can show the no. of followers from "Bloggers", "Facebook", "Twitter" or any other social media platform.
This will be much powerful and we can communicate to individually from different platforms and our "WordPress" is the centralized source of contents.
Is like we have the WordPress Comment Plus which allow users to comment via different social media platforms. There, we can ditch the Facebook page as we can communicate directly with their personal account page.
Member — 17th October 2011 (7 months ago) #
@freedom thanks for the feedback and yes, I agree with what you are saying. When you log into Wordpress.com though, there is a different feel to the follow button as you don't have to enter your email address, it just automatically happens, so great to combine many subscriptions into one.
What you suggest will help social interaction, but I see the follow feature a great tool to have as part of a blog network internally.
Member — 17th October 2011 (7 months ago) #
Wow...if this is going to implement as a plugin here...you will get even more sales via your loyalties and that's how multi-level marketing works.
Any +1 :)
Sales & Support Pro — 17th October 2011 (7 months ago) #
Hiya guys!
This is something I've thought about a few times lately... there are tons of features on WordPress.com that many network owners would like but unfortunately aren't released by WP.com as plugins :(
The follow feature is probably one of the most basic but useful features for networks and would definitely be a cool thing to have.
I'll pass this to some members of the team for us to think on....
Cheers,
Phil
Member — 18th October 2011 (7 months ago) #
@Phil - Wow...4 members tagged and it is definitely something worthwhile to develop. Do update us on your team's thoughts and I will be happy to "Follow" the progress in this thread regularly. Thank you.
Member — 18th October 2011 (7 months ago) #
+1 for this. I was green with envy when wp.com put that out. The functionality is great and having being able to offer that to my bloggers would be awesome.
Member — 18th October 2011 (7 months ago) #
@Phil
Yeah I only logged back in there last week for the first time in a while, there's definitely a ton of cool new stuff in there. (looks like they might have gotten some inspiration from Edublogs too! lol)
If there could be a follow feature that combines multiple subscriptions into a daily email for example, that integrates with either subscribe by email or the newsletter plugin, that would simply rock!
I guess it's just really controlling the RSS subscriptions across the board?
Member — 18th October 2011 (7 months ago) #
@Saunt
Yes agreed! I searched high and dry to see if someone's taken the initiative to create something but doubt it.
Member — 1st December 2011 (5 months ago) #
+1 for this one. I would also be very interesting in this kind of plugin....
Founder & CEO — 8th December 2011 (5 months ago) #
I think it'd be great to have, not only for Multisite but as a simple follow widget for any individual WP install!
Member — 8th December 2011 (5 months ago) #
+1 Marketpress friendly
Member — 8th December 2011 (5 months ago) #
+1, this would be awesome for multisite networks!
Member — 8th December 2011 (5 months ago) #
I am also enthusiastic for "Follow Topic" just like what Mashable has.
It's like an aggregator of all posts networkside under the same category or tag. Can be done in line with Global Tags.
Member — 24th January 2012 (4 months ago) #
+1 for Multisite & Marketpress compatibility
Member — 25th January 2012 (4 months ago) #
hm, the LIKE functions (as in LIKE a whole blog) sounds kinda like the "Post Voting" plugin available here. Maybe it can be extended with a LIKE for the whole blog?
The FOLLOW function doesn't seem to be doing anything else than the "Subscribe by Email" plugin does or am I mistaken? If I am right, all we need is to upgrade the subscribe by email plugin to insert a follow button in a place of our choice.#
just my 2 cents.
Member — 12th February 2012 (3 months ago) #
+1 for this plugin.
Having the ability for our multisite users to "follow" certain blogs WITHIN the framework of our network and not via an outside source like RSS or simple bookmarking is a highly requested feature on our site.
Would LOVE to see this get developed.
Support Chimp — 12th February 2012 (3 months ago) #
All requests can now be made on the following site:
http://wpmudev.uservoice.com/
The most popular and most voted requests will always be considered for future implementation. :-)
Take care.
Member — 14th February 2012 (3 months ago) #
here is an alternative for the LIKE features:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gravatar-like/
Member — 14th February 2012 (3 months ago) #
+1 for this as a plug-in.
Founder & CEO — 14th February 2012 (3 months ago) #
Mmmm, that's not bad!
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