Web 2.0 – Odiogo on WordPress (self-hosted)

Late last week, I had found out about Odiogo which changes your blog text to speech (see my post on 8/11/2007) and had tried adding it to my blogs. At the time, I had a Google Blogger blog and a WordPress blog hosted on WordPress.com.

It worked just fine adding it to my Google Blogger blog, but it turns out there is no way to add it to a WordPress.com hosted blog. This was a big black mark against WordPress.com blogs in my opinion.

Since then, we have set up our own domain and I created a subdomain of my own (clear.bluedei.com) and set up my own WordPress blog on there and supposedly, it was possible to use Odiogo on a self-hosted WordPress blog so I created my feed and submitted my request to Odiogo and waited impatiently for my confirmation email to arrive from them.

It came this afternoon, so I then tried setting up Odiogo on my new blog. It was amazingly easy! I just downloaded the plugin from the link in the confirmation email, ftp’ed it to my wp-content/plugins subdirectory on my subdomain and set it up on my blog. Now I have an odiogo feed button on my sidebar so people can subscribe to my audio feed and each time I create a post, the odiogo ‘listen now’ button is automatically added to my post.

Here are the actual instructions that were very clear and easy to follow.

1. Download the plugin

2. Upload directory odiogo_listen_button to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory via FTP

3. Login to your WordPress admin account and activate the Odiogo Listen Button plugin through the Plugins menu

4. Click Menu Options > Odiogo Listen Button

5. Enter your Odiogo Feed ID and click Save
Your Odiogo Feed ID is xxxxx.

6. Click menu Presentation > Widgets (or Sidebar Widgets depending on your WP version)

7. Drag and drop Odiogo Subscribe Button from Available Widgets to Sidebar

8. Click Save Changes

Here is a link to the Odiogo FAQ page. I noticed that people have been trying to find out why their feeds were being cut off before they were done.  You can find the answer on this FAQ page by looking under “How do I activate RSS full text option on…” and they have one for Typepad, WordPress and Blogger.

It is really a neat and useful tool and I’m very glad I can add it to my new blog.

~Susan Mellott

Google Analytics Update and WordPress Beef

Well, the latest on my problem accessing blogger.com, google analytics, etc is now fixed. I’m not sure what the problem was, but I closed Firefox and reopened it and everything was OK. I had tried closing all but 1 tab and that didn’t do it. I thought I might have to reboot my PC but fortunately not.

As you may know, I’m trying to decide between Google Blogger and WordPress for my blog. Currently I am updating both and trying to decide which one I want to ultimately go to. So far, in many ways I have been leaning towards WordPress. Part of this is because I like the idea of hosting it myself and I am hoping that when I do, some of the problems will be solved with the additional plug-ins available.

But it is driving me crazy trying to add buttons and whatnot to my WordPress.com blog. I am trying to add a “Digg It” button for Digg. But it seems to be impossible. I have looked and looked and can’t find a reasonable solution. And there are many other ones that won’t work on WordPress, usually because WordPress doesn’t allow Javascript.

And it would not be so bad if it wasn’t almost every single thing I try to do. I do it in Blogger and it is easy. I try in WordPress and it is somewhere between difficult and impossible.

I am still hopeful that if I host my WordPress blog, it will solve alot of these problems. I really hope so because for some reason, I still like WordPress.

~Susan Mellott

WordPress vs. Blogger Poll

I’ve added a poll to the side bar of my other blog (Along the Path to 2.0) to get some feel for what blog engines people use and prefer. I added it to that blog because Google Blogger has a built-in page element for creating a poll which made it very easy. It is not nearly so easy in WordPress. In fact, I’m not sure how I would do it. But I know it would not be as simple and would undoubtedly involve some external polling software. Anyway, that’s why it is there instead of here and I’d surely appreciate you popping over there to vote.

And along those lines:
I have created a blog in both Blogger and in WordPress so I can play with them and see what they each have. I wrote a post on this when I first set them up. I’ve been finding out ways to do things that I want in each, but still like some features in one and some in the other. I’m really hesitant to judge WordPress until I get a chance to move my blog to my own website (which I hope to have soon) since I know that adds a lot of functionality. However, not everyone (or probably most people) have their own site and therefore, the blog engine of choice for them may not be WordPress.

I’m also curious which engine is best for directing people to your site for posts of interest. I’m trying to monitor it via blog stats in WordPress and Google Analytics in Blogger, but blog stats does not give as much information. I did add site meter to my WordPress blog. I found out how to add html code (only straight html code) to my blog via the text widget. It gives much more statistics.

In the process of doing two “separate but equal” blogs, I realize that I really need to settle on one or the other, and do it soon. For one thing, I have to duplicate each post if I want it on each site, and also, I really don’t want someone to start reading one site and then have it go away (or quit updating) if I switch to the other. I figure I can put a post on the site directing people to my new site, but still, I don’t feel right about it. Also, anyone thinking that I actually have two different blogs would be disappointed. I thought at first that I would put more practical information on this blog, which is my WordPress “All Things Web 2.0” blog and the posts (like this) that talk about my discovery process and thoughts on my Google Blogger blog “Along the Path to 2.0“.

But then I realized that people might read something on one or the other of my blogs and be interested in what else I might have to say and would miss half of it by having it somewhere else. So I am mostly just posting the same things on each blog. I apologize if it annoys anyone.

Also, I am sure there are other blog engines out there that people use. I know Live Journal is one that I really haven’t even looked at. If you use a different blog engine than Blogger or WordPress, could you please leave a comment letting me know what you use? And of course, comments are always, always welcome. I’d be thrilled if you left a comment and would love to hear from you about things you have found, ideas to share and comments about my post, or me, or anything else you feel like saying.

Anyway, since you are reading this, please take time to vote!

Thanks,

Susan Mellott

Google Analytics

I found a way to add code to my Goggle Blogger blog that should let me use Google Analytics which looks like it will give me a ton of information about who accesses my blog. I just added it so I’ll have to wait to see what information I get.

Since this can track any website, I could add this blog to it also, but I have to figure out how to add the code to my WordPress blog, which maybe I can’t do until I host it myself. I think there surely must be a way to add code to my blog template, but maybe not.

~Susie

Google Blogger vs. WordPress

I have created a blog in both WordPress (this one) and in Blogger – Along the Path to 2.0.

I am trying to decide which I prefer and of course, they each have things I want. One thing I just did on this site using WordPress is to import all my blogs from my Google Blogger blog. That was really handy and a great way to change over to this site if I decide on WordPress.

But one thing I don’t like as well about WordPress is that I can’t seem to get to the underlying code as easily. In Blogger I can view the HTML and I have added the code to add a technorati button to it. It just seems a lot more flexible so far. But on the other hand, one of the biggest things right now for me is looking at my Blog Stats, and WordPress has a whole page dedicated to that and Blogger does not have anything, at least that I have found so far.

I also could not find out how to add widgets (beyond the standard ones) to either of these (excepting the code I put in Blogger). Sean tells me that the reason I can’t do it in WordPress is that I am not hosting my blog. Hopefully I’ll get my own web server one of these days and then I can explore that further. I wonder if it is the same issue in Blogger. I’d love to be able to add new page elements to my Blog and drag and drop them, which is really nice in Blogger and OK in WordPress.

And of course, I am a newbie to both of these systems (and to web page coding in general) so I will learn as I go. I’ve certainly figured out a ton of little things so far. Just like anything, at first everything is time-consuming and difficult. As I figure out some of the basics, it becomes easier.

I would greatly appreciate your comments about which Blog engine you like, and why!

Update: Here is another look at these 2 blog engines. Also, read my next post for info on using Google Analytics for tracking Blogger (was Blogspot).

~Susie