Wibiya and Thesis theme and other new media tools to watch

by Marcus on June 25, 2009

You may not know this, but one of the primary reasons for this blog is that I use it to test things. Sure, I post poetry here. Every now and then I actually talk about editing too. Lately, my editing work has centered around editing new media, though.

This doesn’t mean that I’m not editing sentences and phrases for folks like Scot McKnight, Mark D. Roberts, Al Hsu, L. L. Barkat, Ann Voskamp, Dan Roloff, Howard Butt, and all the other writers who publish on TheHighCalling.org. (That list just came to mind, to the 120 other folks I didn’t mention, I still love you, I promise.)

Lately, I’ve embarked on several tech editorial ventures through this blog.

  1. Lijit continues to interest me as a network search tool for bloggers. Recently, I tweaked it’s appearance here and on HighCallingBlogs.com. Due to our technical limitations, Lijit still hasn’t quite taken off for our blog network… yet. We’re working on that. And I still really love what they are doing.
  2. Thesis Theme from DIYThemes is absolutely too cool. We purchased it for our nonprofit sites on the HighCallingBlogs.com server. (Right now, we’re actively testing it here, and we’re in development rebuilding HighCallingBlogs.com in Thesis.) If you use Wordpress, you have to see this theme. It isn’t free. But the best things in life often cost a little something. Please note, I am not trying to get you to buy thesis through some underhanded affiliate account. (I should set one up probably.) Also, I’m still working to figure out how the Thesis thumbnails work.
  3. Sociable’s Facebook Connect plugin is one of the options we’re looking at for integrating Facebook Connect with HighCallingBlogs.com. I installed the Sociable pluging for Facebook Connect last week. It was easy to install and helped me set up a Facebook application that worked specifically with this blog. But it didn’t make it obvious to users why they would want to connect via Facebook. Of course, a little coding and design would do the trick, but we thought we’d try a few other options as well.
  4. Wibiya is what we’re currently playing with. Chris Cree found while exploring other Facebook Connect options. What a guy. I tested it yesterday on sample sites (like the hilarious and earnest Art of Manliness). Seriously, though, if you want to test drive this thing, link my site and theirs to Facebook. It is pretty amazing. You can connect with people through the plugin. But you can also see all of your regular Facebook friends, your Facebook email, etc.

Wibiya is still in Beta. I’m not quite understanding the Blog Community application that it uses for Facebook Connect. I need to figure out where it pulls thumbnails from. And my “random” button isn’t working at all.

Like Lijit, I don’t know if Wibiya will be a solution that takes off for us. But I see a lot to admire here.

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Tagged as: facebook connect, Lijit, sociable, thesis theme, wibiya, Wordpress

{ 4 comments }

1 Tara Anderson June 25, 2009 at 10:33 am

Marcus, as always, thanks for your continued support of Lijit. I’m here to help whenever you need it and hope that more HighCalling bloggers take advantage of the power of our network search.

2 Marcus June 27, 2009 at 8:19 am

Thanks, Tara. You all have gone above and beyond in the realm of customer service. Thanks so much for what you’ve done! (And see how cool Lijit fits into with Thesis Theme with Openhook?)

3 Every Square Inch July 3, 2009 at 1:38 pm

Once again, I bow to your social media guru-ness. Thanks for sharing, Marcus.

4 Marcus July 3, 2009 at 11:58 pm

ESI, you are the open source, entrepreneurial tech guru!

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