Web 2.0 functionality relays on the interactions between people and websites through the concept of content sharing with users of wide communities. In order to ensure the best users experience and to drive more traffic to an existing website, there is recommended to add social networking and bookmarking features to it. For a website built on the WordPress blogging platform the inclusion of the social networking related elements is relatively simple and can be performed with the help of free ready made plugins.

Google Friend Connect Integration WordPress plugin allows you to create a social network right inside your blog. Users are able to join to the network based on their existing Google, Yahoo, AIM, or OpenID accounts. The widgets which come with this plugin permit users to post comments and YouTube videos.

The plugin represents a rapid implementation of Google Friend connect service. The only requirement to make it work is the site ID (obtain from your Google Friend Connect account). There are many customizable parameters of the Google Friend Connect gadgets, such as width and height or colors and text.

If you already have a Facebook account and a lot of friends in your community, Facebook Connect Wordpress plugin is a suitable addition to your blog. The users will be allowed to login using their Facebook account, see last visitors, post comments, share posts or invite their friends to become members of your network.

Twitter users could install TweetSuite, which is a Twitter-WordPress integration plugin that includes various features: server-side (no-JS or remote calls) TweetBacks, a digg-like Tweet-This button automatic tweeting of new posts and a series of widgets.

What you should not forget to include into the WordPress blog is the social bookmarking features. Through social bookmarks, users will promote your content into wide social networks (practically they will give a positive vote for a favorite article, news, picture or other resource).

For example, the Social Bookmarks plugin adds a XHTML compliant list of graphic links pointing to social bookmarking websites like Digg, delicious, Google Bookmarks, Yahoo My Web and many more. If you are looking for plugins with a specific social networking functionality, a good place to start is WordPress Plugins Directory.

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 4:13 am and is filed under Content Management Systems, Tutorials, WordPress News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.