I was reading Joost de Valk’s post, On the GPL, Themes, Plugins & Free. Matt Mullenweg had mentioned during WordCamp Chicago 2009 about how WordPress was going to be putting a separate section recognizing people who did commercially supported GPL themes. I for one, though I have never been very verbal about it, have always had done this for my own themes that I made for clients.

Recently, I blogged about How To Appreciate Your Web Developers where I try to spread the message that it is important to support your web developers and how to do it. This can be tied with the topic for WordPress GPL themes and plugins. I like this idea about the themes, but I have to agree with people like Joost de Valk and Justin Parks that plugin developers should be included. These special plugins give that extra oomph to make your site pop. I remember my first plugin donation was to Alex King for WP-Grins and that was a couple years ago. I now make free emoticon smilies for people to use and most people probably have used his plugin.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you even think there should be a section to recognize GPL supported themes or plugins? Have you ever donated to a WordPress plugin developer?

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Social Networking sites have become popular over the past few years. Each place competes and adds new features to keep their visitors interested. These sites provide a way to:

• Connect with other people in similar niche
• Find old friends and possibly connect with extended family members
• Provide entertaining applications
• Sell products or provide an online business presence

It is all about interacting. What sites are better? Well, that is something that can be argued. Whether it is Facebook or MySpace or Twitter or something else, they provide the same basic services when taking away all the extra shiny stuff.

So many new sites have surfaced and attracted so many people because the service may be unique. People are sharing their links from other social networks so their followers and friends can connect with them at other places. What use to be the normal “I will just join these three places” has become a couple dozen. People use blog widget services like DandyID to show visitors every online social identity.

I am no longer getting the definite feeling I use to a couple years ago that social networks are trying to have open cat fights, but focus more on strengthening and upgrading their core product to provide more efficient services.

So, here is my thoughts. It does not matter how many networks you belong too. If you are there, I will follow you back. It makes everything far more fun when you can meet new people and share similar experiences. These experiences make for great conversation.

What was the first social network you joined? How active are you? Do you feel you have made some pretty good connections?

Yes, I did say ‘pitchman’, but really- you are a salesman of your blog even if you are not selling anything for cash. You are trying to connect and influencing people whether outside or inside your expertise. Like Billy Mays was, he was confident in his products and with his loud voice and knack for selling. He was successful in pitching his products. He made his products memorable and many people, even myself can say that when I see OxiClean or Awesome Auger, Billy Mays comes to mind. His power to demonstrate that his product was effective, influenced me to buy it.

Your blog is your product. Every word flows from your thoughts. As I remember Liz Strauss said that bloggers should write in their own way and not as if it were for a newspaper. People cannot discover your wonderful nuances when it is black and white. Make your blog you, and sell it.

I will say this- as a graphic and web designer, there are many tutorials out there. Many are similar, but each are different in how they are presented. Usually it is presented in the way that the tutorial writers knows and so as the reader, you have to figure it out. Some tutorial authors may phrase their material in a way that is difficult to follow. Others might be easy to figure out. However, this same principal can be applied to blogging.

How do you pitch your blog? What tools do you use?