August 29 th

10

Is this a good idea for a contest?

Posted by Andy Bailey
71 views

manual text search prize got And tonights star prize is.....

Win your own plugin!

I’ve had some phenomenal traffic and trackbacks to the CommentLuv plugin page since I made it and with all that action it has upped the plugin page to a PR of 6.

Now, I know PR isn’t so widely worshipped as much as it used to be but, PR is like money… it’s not until you have it that you realize that it’s not that important. Unless, you don’t have it and then it seems like everything will get better if only you did have it! :-)

So here’s an idea that could get someone the fame and fortune that comes with writing a new plugin, I’ve written a few custom plugins for this site and I thought it might be nice to run a contest for the chance for someone to be the offical site for the plugin. (beware, I have had literally thousands of comments on the commentluv page! so be prepared to get a ton of your own comments if you win)

The link for the plugin page on the plugins’ dashboard page would point to the winners site.

The winners site will be the ‘official’ place for the plugin so it will be shown in the readme, on the wordpress codex download page and anywhere else someone writes a review of the plugin. If I update the plugin then I notify you and you can update the plugin release page.

The choice of plugins:

  • Contest Notify
    This plugin checks a category and if there’s a post in it, it slides a div down containing the excerpt of the post and a link to the page. It also looks for a custom field called “prizepic” and retrieves the url of the image to be used.

    It’s pretty basic at the moment because I just use it myself but I see some areas of improvement such as putting all the settings in it’s own dashboard page so a user can change the title and style of the box so it can be used for all sorts of featured posts instead of just contests…

  • Close comments per post
    This is a simple plugin that looks for a custom field called “closecontest” in a post and checks the date given and if the post is after that date and time, it closes the comment form. It’s really useful for time specific posts like contests or when you ask for opinions on plans you have that are about to start.
  • LivingPostImage(requires Curl and Flickr API)
    This is a fairly adaptable plugin for putting an image into a post. yey! well, there’s a little more to it than that. It does require the user to apply for a Flickr API but that’s quite a simple process and free.

    I call it Living because it always gets the latest public picture for the search terms given so the picture changes over time which helps to keep the posts looking like new. It can search for terms you give it or use the title of the post or the first 3 tags of the post. It outputs the html to display the picture directly or can pass back an array of url, page url and title.

  • Custom Scripts Per Post
    Simple plugin that allows you to include javascript in the head of the page for a particular post only. It’s pretty useful if you write tutorials or you want a particularly snazzy bit of script included for just one post. Just give the path to the script in a custom field called “myscripts” and it’ll be included for that post.

So, what do you think? any suggestions or ideas? I think it could turn out to be a pretty good traffic generator for someone….

Popularity: 2% [?]

Category : Blog News | Blog Tools | contests

Related Posts

  • Contest ideas
  • TomTom central database for businesses?
  • Anonymous Love Is All Around..
  • Goodies in the pipeline for FiddyP Land
  • New Contest runs until Friday for Euromillions Rollover
  • Whos A Clever Cow Then?
  • Back on track again

  • Comments

    witchypoo (79 comments.) August 29, 2008

    I think you are right! In my humble opinion, though, CommentLuv is the best plugin evah.
    I pimp it out all the time.

    witchypoos last blog post..SIL Twice Removed

    Sarah Lewis (1 comments.) August 29, 2008

    I think it’s a very interesting idea for a contest, and one I’d definitely enter because of the great overlap between my target audience and the people who would come for the plugin.

    Sarah Lewiss last blog post..3 Easy Ways To Get More Mileage From Your Blog Posts

    Andy Bailey August 29, 2008

    witchypoo: thanks! It likes to be pimped :-)

    Sarah: thanks for your opinion. I don’t know what sort of format to choose for the contest though.. I’ll have to think about it….

    hariesaja (1 comments.) August 29, 2008

    thx for your idea for this contest

    Anti Scams Product Reviews (24 comments.) August 30, 2008

    Andy, it sounds like a great idea for a contest. and yes CommentLuv is the greatest.

    Anti Scams Product Reviewss last blog post..Free Pizza Scam - Is It Real or Just Another Scam?

    Jon (31 comments.) August 31, 2008

    Great idea for a contest Andy - perfectly targetted to your readership

    (BTW the LivingPostImage plugin sounds really interesting. If I was you, I might be tempted to keep that on my own blog - could drive nearly as much traffic as CommentLuv does! ;-)

    Cheers, Jon

    Jons last blog post: Your Salon Website - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) basics

    Andy Bailey August 31, 2008

    aspr: thanks!

    jon: I think it has good potential, I really like how the image changes over time and most of the time, they are related to the post.

    @del (1 comments.) September 1, 2008

    CommentLuv, especialy i use do follow link.

    @dels last blog post: Alasan Memilih Wordpress

    Jessica (2 comments.) September 5, 2008

    Yeah, great idea! I just installed CommentLuv and I luv it ! Keep up the great works! :=D

    Jessicas last blog post: 3 Effective Ways to Increase Google Adsense $

    Proxy (1 comments.) September 10, 2008

    I agree with Jon about the LivingPostImage plugin. Being able to update images and knowing they will be related without doing it manually would be a great addition to one of my future blogs.

    I also have a suggestion for the format… not sure if this would work for you as I haven`t followed any of your previous contests, but thought it might be worth a mention.

    The winner, could be the person(s) who comes up with the best idea for a new plugin. Could be a win win situation… you get new ideas, winner gets to take on a hot plugin as well as possibly getting their idea developed.Proxys last blog post..schoolworksurfing.info

    Leave a comment

    follow fiddyp on twitter

    21 online now
    the most online was 176
    Sponsors
    available ad space available ad space available ad space available ad space available ad space available ad space