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followers plugin?

Hi,

I was wondering whether anybody knows about any intention to develop a followers plugin, where you can see how many followers each author has? I know there is some stuff out there like bloglog and others, but is there anything more integrated with wordpress, and ideally broken down by author?

thx

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:32:44
  • mcandrei
    • Design Lord, Child of Thor

    I am thinking of some sort of widget that would list the user and next to it the number of followers and maybe also the number of posts. I was thinking of a follow link next to each post (like http://caps.fool.com/blogs/viewpost.aspx?bpid=221062&t=01009773966946829295 for example, although I dunno if this works that way, not a member there), and when a user clicks on follow the number of followers increases by 1.

    I don’t have a concrete idea and haven’t really thought this through, but I guess the next step would be to make it similar to an RSS feed where a user could click on the link and receive a feed just for posts coming from a particular author? let me know what you think..

  • Andrew
    • Champion of Loops

    I could see a feature like that being useful for a regular WP blog that has a bunch of authors but I’m not sure this would be a super useful WPMU plugin.

    If any other members would like to see this feature developed leave a +1 post.

    Thanks,

    Andrew

  • GhostPool
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    I like the idea. But I want to extend the idea so it’s useful for the members following the blogs.

    I would like members to be able to keep a list of the blogs they are following. So you would click a button to follow a blog and it would be stored in a list in your sidebar. It think it’s useful if you want to have fast access to a lot of blogs hosted on your site. It’s not practical to bookmark so many links or always get the feed from them.

    Every time a blog is followed by a member, +1 is added to the SQL database of the respective blog. Additionally maybe a new table can be created for each user which stores their following blog list, every time a follow button is clicked, and this can be called upon to place the list in the sidebar.

  • Hiranthi
    • Recruit

    So, it’s kind of a ‘favorite blogs’-list that only consists of blogs that are inside the wpmu install. And instead of "X times favorite’d" it says "X followers". Sounds cool and like something I could use for my own install :slight_smile:

    Shouldnt the numbers be also updated when someone removes a blog from their following-list btw?

  • GhostPool
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    So, it’s kind of a ‘favorite blogs’-list that only consists of blogs that are inside the wpmu install. And instead of "X times favorite’d" it says "X followers". Sounds cool and like something I could use for my own install :slight_smile:

    Exactly – it’s a favourites list. The "following" aspect is that the blog itself will display how many people have favourited their blog. This aspect though is less of a necessity, I’m more interested in the favourites list.

  • Hiranthi
    • Recruit

    I don’t think adding the list to the sidebar would be a good idea (you’d have to handcode it to every theme your WPMU install has, or hope everyone will add the widget to the sidebar). You could however add (ie. with my Global Header or Adding Blocks plugin) a piece of HTML that has the users menu in it with a link to a page where all their favorite blogs are in, or list all the blogs in that header/footer/block.

  • GhostPool
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    I’m currently adapting (very poorly) the Friends plugin while we wait for the Followers plugin.

    It works okay since all my users have a blog and can’t register without creating one. I’ve added a Follow link to the widget, which when clicked directs the user to the Add Friends page.

    http://wrestleblogs.com/wp-admin/friends.php?page=find-friends

    However I want to be able to add the user as a friend directly by clicking the Follow button using something like this:

    http://wrestleblogs.com/wp-admin/friends.php?page=find-friends&action=add&id=[ID]&search_terms=[USERNAME]

    I know this works because if I insert a specific ID and username it adds that user, but I can’t seem to call the ID and username of the blog that I am on at the time. Any help would be appreciated.

  • GhostPool
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    For those interested, I have altered Andrew’s excellent Friends Plugin so it acts as a Followers plugin.

    Whereas the Friends plugin would show you who you are friends with, this alteration shows you who is following your blog.

    I’ve also created a link within the widget so you follow a blog by clicking a link in the blogs’ sidebar – there’s no need to go through the Admin Panel to befriend/follow anyone now.

    I’ve also disabled the notification option so you’re not bombarded with emails.

    If you want the altered code I will provide it here. You can see it in action at: http://ghostpool.wrestleblogs.com