Author Archive

There is a new version of Wordpress Plugin out for Wordpress 2.7. You can download it from the codex or from the download page on this site.

Version 2.6.2 of CommentLuv works with Intense Debate, it should kick in automatically if you have Intense Debate enabled for your wordpress site.

New site coming too! There are some major developments in store for the CommentLuv site in the new year, I have already received a quote and paid the deposit so coding and designing can begin! There isn’t anything else I can say about it at the moment but you can be sure it will be a corker!! I really am excited about finally getting the chance to invest some real money with some proffessional programmers and designers to get the next stage of commentluv ready for the world!

Have a great Christmas and New Year!

oh, there’s a contest running for the  next few weeks at fiddyp where you can win any one of PacktPub’s IT books in there store. Visit Fiddyp to find out more

I have been playing with commentluv to get it to have some functionality with Intense debate and I have it working for logged out users making new replies.

It wont work for logged in users or for threaded replies to comments but at least it’s something!

I’ll test it some more and release it to the codex soon.

oo, nearly Christmas!

Weekly Roundup Number 7

Well, it’s not been that quiet, it’s just all the work has been done behind the scenes. Oh and it’s Christmas and all that.

There might be some awesome news to report but it’s still too early to tell anyone yet.

You’ll have to wait until after the Holiday period to find out but, believe me, you will feel the luv and it will be good.

Happy Christmas to everyone, if I don’t see you before the new year then have a good one of those too!

Weekly Roundup Number 6

The progress never stops, it wont even stop when I try to get some days off!

Another happening week has flown by and there are some more improvements and some great news about the future of the CommentLuv site. The site got just over a million hits this week already and there are no signs of it stopping! (touch wood)

Read below to see what has happened this week continue

I tried to take the weekend off this week due to excessive use of the keyboard, it didn’t quite work out though because I ended up doing a minor update to the Wordpress version of CommentLuv so it is fully compatible with WP2.7rc1 which a lot of people are trying now.

It’s still not integrated with Intense Debate yet but it’s just a few short lines of code away from that so I’m saving it for the rest of the updates to come into the big update version coming in the new year…

Big update?? yup, It’s more than likely that I will be doing some major updates to the site and plugin over the Christmas period and, there might even be a whole new site to look at in spring time!

I will be talking with developers over the next couple of weeks to get some quotes for my big plan for CommentLuv. It’s only at the stage of scribbled notes and wishlists at the moment but I am confident that you wil dig it!

Weekly Roundup Number 5

Another week has gone by and it’s been a veritable zoom fest! I have been so busy behind the scenes this week doing some doing’s that I’ve barely had time to put a weekly roundup together but luckily, I have scored a couple of hours all on my lonesome in the front room with the winter sun shining in through the window.

I am changing the format of the weekly roundup slightly this week, I’ll post all the details as a blog post and use the email to give a quick excerpt of what to expect online as well as some exclusive news just for subscribers

My own little super highway

The traffic to the CommentLuv site went over 4 MILLION hits this month! wo0t One day this month had over 200,000 hits come in which blew me away, I never expected it to go up so quickly.

The majority of the traffic has been via the ajax calls to retrieve the last blog posts but even so, the unique visitors is way up on last month which fills me full with fluffy rabbits jumping around saying “yey” (hey! rabbits DO say “yey” you know)

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The first blogger commentluv site featured

Holly from hollyjahangiri.blogspot.com is this weeks featured commentluvver.

You can read about the site and why she does what she does on the post

weekly featured site here

Look (go)daddy!

I’m proud to say that after a few hours manipulating my digits ‘pon the keys late at night, I was able to get CommentLuv working on a godaddy blog.

The first blog to feel the luv on a godaddy hosting is Realestateinvestorgirl (@kathcouch).

I can completely blame twitter for causing this to happen, those little streams of messages that flow down the screen cause endless amounts of “ooh, what’s that? I wonder if I could just….” hehehe

Really cool tutorial for blogger commentluv blogs

If you’re a blogger blog owner then you really should check out The Technical Thought Of You which is a fantastic site for blogger tips and technical tutorials.

This week there is a tutorial on how to use js-kit to add a recent comments widget to your blogger blog, it uses very precise and accurate instructions so there’s no excuse not to show off your latest comments.

Last comments on blogger commentluv tutorial

Trying out some Magpie advertising

Not strictly CommentLuv news but sort of….. I have been selling some items on ebay this week and to try and push some more out, I paid for some advertising with Magpie.
Now, I don’t know if it was the magpie ad or it was because of my excellent prices/service but, I sold out of almost everything! (some speakers and headphones left) I’ve never had such a busy time, even stuff that has been in my shop listings for a month started to go out. Some for business, some for personal which means I can put some money into this site! (watch out for fluffy rabbits!)

I’ve got some great stats collected so I will be writing about the whole campaign later this week with graphs and pictures and other geeky stuff.

Ebay offer

This one is for email subscribers only, if you want to know what I say in these bits then make sure you can receive emails from admin (at) commentluv.com and have your profile check boxes ticked for receiving email.

I helped raise 10,000 USD in 48 hours!

@tweetsgiving had an idea to use twitter as a way of celebrating Thanksgiving by getting the twitterverse to raise money for a school classroom in Tanzania. He did it, he did it in style! now at over 11,000 dollars and rising.

You can read about it here..

Twitter Field added to comments

I’ve added the wp-twitip-id plugin to the site so everyone with a twitter account can have another place to show their “follow me” link.

It’s still in beta 0.9 stage but it’s working quite well and is just a week or so away from a full release version on the codex. Let me know what you think of this or what else you think could improve it and get your name mentioned in the source. (now how could you resist that? lol)

Mashable Voting round 1 closed

A big thanks to all those who voted for CommentLuv in the Mashable Open Web Awards, the first round is finished and while they collect all the votes the widget on the front page will show the latest news.

fingers crossed!!

Contest winners still haven’t notified me

All those that won physical prizes need to contact me to arrange a cash alternative or where to send your prize. Please use the PM on the forum or help desk to let me know your preference. Cash or prize? in either case, send your relevant details for sending prize or paypal money.

I got a free book!

Packtpublishing is sending me a new book about Wordpress For Business Bloggers , they’re offering a deal if you get both books together. Stay tuned for the review of the new book!

The future!!

Check the email for the news of the future for CommentLuv and some associated products, plus a very exciting possible site for revenue share…

This week’s featured site is

Hollyjahangirl.blogspot.com

Holly was the first ever public blogger blog to have CommentLuv installed and working and I thought I’d showcase her blog here and ask her some questions..

Q1. What, why and where do you blog?

My main blog is “Do I Have to Spell It Out?” at http://blog.jahangiri.us (http://hollyjahangiri.blogspot.com).

The name comes from the fact that I’m always being asked to spell my last name, as well as the fact that spelling things out - both literally and figuratively - is something we writers do.

Why do I blog? Because I am not one of those writers who can say, “I write because it’s like breathing, and I do it only to please myself” - I write because I like the interactivity of it, the conversations I can have with readers.

I blog about whatever is on my mind. Sometimes I blog about writing and being published. What can you say about writing that hasn’t already been said a hundred thousand times? And yet, other writers - a group that comprises just about anyone who’s ever scribbled letters on paper with a pencil - are always eager to read more. It’s as if we’re searching for the Holy Grail of writing, the revelation of the secrets to writing a bestseller and achieving overnight fame.

I also write about my family, kids, politics, society, camping, traveling, cooking…like I said, whatever’s on my mind. Some days it’s profound, some days it’s just silly. My book has its own blog: “Trockle” at http://trockle.blogspot.com .

Q2. What is your favourite part of blogging?

Interaction with readers. That’s why I like CommentLuv, too - it encourages other bloggers to comment and leave “breadcrumbs” back to their own blogs. I get more comments, and I get to discover new blogs to read and bloggers to follow. It’s a win-win situation.

Q3. You currently blog using blogger, do you have any plans for going to your own hosted version?

Ironically, I moved BACK to Blogger after running my own hosted Wordpress for about a year. I love hosting my own blog - but customizing it and upgrading the software every time there’s a new release is time-consuming and I’d like to focus on the content, not the mechanics.

I like Blogger’s new “gadgets” and layout templates. I absolutely hated them when they first implemented them - that’s one of the reasons I bit the bullet and moved to my own hosted Wordpress. But Blogger has matured, and I’ve come back home.

Q4. You were the first person besides a test blog to have a working version of CommentLuv on a blogger blog, how has it been received by your readers?

My readers, for the most part, are not “techies” - CommentLuv intrigues them and baffles them, and ultimately, it may prove to be too much work and too confusing. What would really make it take off, with most of my readers, is if you could make a Blogger “gadget” that make it really easy and quick to install. I have to admit that it’s fun to be able to claim that I was the first ever to implement CommentLuv on a Blogger blog - not to mention the user that goaded you into getting it working on Blogger, finally!

Q5.Here’s a tough one, what single thing would make your blogging life easier?

A wireless brain chip that would let me THINK my posts to the Internet. My luck, it would give me a massive headache and work about as well as your average voice recognition app.

Thanks Holly for taking the time to answer my questions, I’ll see if I can work in a way of using a widget to add the commentluv code to blogger. It might be slightly easier for some!

Top Five
“100 Good Things About Me” at is a pretty good introduction and starting point for new readers. “Hurricane Ike, Before and After” is an example of what happens when a writer is cooped up inside, going stir-crazy, while the news media is advising everyone to “hunker down” for the “big one.”
Hurricane Ike practically filled the Gulf, and it occurred to me that I might actually be blogging something moderately newsworthy. It also occurred to me that if the killer pine in the back yard fell into the master bedroom, it might be my LAST blog entry - ever. Afterwards, there were some humorous highlights that stood out from all the seriousness of the situation, as illustrated by the entry, “Hungry Bob“.

“The Witch” is a true story about how rumors can turn into ridiculous, hurtful things - but also about how ignoring those rumors can have huge rewards. “10 Secrets to Hugely Successful Article Writing” is my “don’t get mad, get even” post - it’s not for the kids (yes, I should have my mouth washed out with soap), but I think it’s something that anyone who has ever been the victim of plagiarism online can appreciate, and maybe it will remind a few folks not to take SEO so seriously they forget how to write like human beings.

This weeks featured site

ShamelesslySassy.com

What a funny and busy site to visit, with the top thumbs up score on the active sites list. This is Amanda and she writes some great content! have you seen The Drunk Tampon? hilarious!

I asked Amanda some questions about her blog…

Q1. What, where and why do you blog?
At ShamelesslySassy.com, I blog my daily life as a parent and woman spiced with humor. I’ve always kept journals and diaries. So blogging just came naturally.

Mostly, I blog because I like to express myself with words, and I love to laugh. Who better to laugh at than myself? It’s been a great outlet for me, and it has also lead to many great opportunities and job offers.

Q2. What is your most rewarding aspect of blogging?
I think one of the more rewarding aspects of blogging is the community. There are strong women and men that I can interact with on a daily basis.
I’ve made some really great friends that I wouldn’t have known otherwise. Also, I love being laughed at and with by my readers.

It’s so great when I post something totally bizarre, and I have someone tell me they do it too or they’ve experienced the situation. It makes everything seem so normal and worthwhile.

Q3. You post about a lot of your personal life online, have you ever regretted that?

I have not reached the day where I regret sharing my personal life online. I hope to not regret it. I think there are just some things that I have to express, and I’d much rather do so online than just bottle it up.

I have great friends and family that support my blogging habit. While I do share a lot of myself online, there’s still a lot kept out of the blog. Believe it or not, I do have boundaries.

Q4. If you could go back in time and speak to yourself before you started blogging, what advice would you give?

Advice, advice, Let’s see: Well, when I started my blog, I didn’t really expect anyone to read it. I didn’t expect anyone to want to read it. It was more of a totally personal journal. But readers slowly came.

I would mostly likely tell my preblog self that while the internet seems so spread out, it is still a small world. If you post something about your neighbors, there is always a chance they will read it. If you rant about your Aunt Gladys, she may read it even IF she doesn’t have the internet. But sometimes, it is a chance that you have to take. Blogging is great, and I would recommend it to anyone.

Q5. What do you think about the commentluv plugin and it’s effect on your site?

The commentluv plugin is one of my favorite plugins of all time. I’m not just saying this for this interview, either. I LOVE commentluv. When I started self-hosting, it was one of the first that I downloaded. If someone has a funny or interesting post title and it shows up in my comments via commentluv, I’ll click on it. It is how I find new blogs. Since I don’t do the feed reading thing, it is how I choose which blogs I read. I’m drawn to the post titles that show up in my comments and the comment sections of others via commentluv.
Commentluv is a great plugin that I truly think all bloggers should have.

Top Five Posts:
The Drunk Tampon
I Can Haz Nuggetz: A Fast Food How-to
Outed in a Local Paper
Allie’s Been Drawing Boobies at Preschool
Poop Chills

Thanks Amanda! Your posts are some of the funniest larf out loud I’ve seen in a long time.

If you enjoy using commentluv as a blog owner or comment maker, please consider giving it a vote in the Mashable open web awards. It’s up against some stiff competition so it’ll need every vote it can get!