What writers on the chat loved most about WordPress was the umpteen plug ins that are available to make it even better.

Because they asked, I’ve compiled a quick list of the best WordPress plug ins for writers mentioned during the chat. Disclaimer: some of these I use, some I’ve heard of but haven’t tried and some I’d never heard of before Wednesday. I’ll let you know what I think about the ones I’ve used. As for the others, you’re on your own.

If you’re hot for some WordPress plug ins that aren’t on this list, please feel free to leave a comment with the details. With more than 10,200 WordPress plug ins out there, many of which could be adapted by writers and freelancers of other kinds, this is by no means a comprehensive list.

And if you missed the chat, or showed up and had a blast, mark your calendar for the next one: Wednesday, July 28, at 8:30 a.m. Pacific time. My guest will be CarriBugbee, award-winning tweeter, social media marketing strategist, speaker and PR/advertising pro. Carri will take questions about using Twitter in your freelance writing business. Follow along at #wclw.

Here’s that WordPress plug in list, in alpha order:

AP Style Dates and Times – Adds classic Associated Press style to WordPress’ normal dates and times. Designed by a newsperson for newspeople.

Akismet – Spam catcher, from WordPress’ parent company, which goes by the same name. If you’re running a WordPress.com blog it’s automatically installed. Don’t leave home without it.

Broken Link Checker – Monitors blog posts and pages and notifies you if links are broken and images are missing. I use this.

BuddyPress – The new WordPress plug in that makes your blog into a social networking site like Facebook, is also red hot right now, says Ron Doyle, a Denver writer, blog designer and the co-host of the WordPress chat.
Copyright Proof – According to the official description: “automatically Digiproves the content of every published blog post (new or edited). This gives you indisputable proof of the content, and the date and time of publication.”

EditFlow – Scheduling software for WordPress-based content management systems. Although it’s set up to schedule blog posts from multiple authors – like in a newsroom – it could work for a single blogger.

LinkWithin – “A very snazzy” related posts plug in, according to Doyle.

Published Articles Since Last Visit – Displays top articles to visitors based on their last visit.

Query Posts – According to developer Justin Tadlock, Query Posts has “everything you’ll ever need to show posts on your site without touching code.” Doyle adds: “Heck, I think Query Posts could make a cup of coffee if you had the time to work with it.”

RB Internal Links – An easy way to link to posts and pages in your blog.

Scribe – Content SEO plugin by Copyblogger. The Scribe description in the WordPress Plug In Directory: “Think of it as a content optimization assistant that analyzes web pages, blog posts, and online press releases at the click of a button.”

WassUp – Tracks visitors in real time.

What Would Seth Godin Do – Displays different, custom messages to new and returning visitors.

To say Matt Mullenweg loves WordPress is to state the obvious.

Mullenweg created the widely used blogging software and runs Automattic, the San Francisco company that offers it as a free platform or a software app you can use to run a self-hosted blog. (Disclaimer: I use WordPress.com for this blog.)

Mullenweg was in Portland last weekend to spread some of that WordPress love around at WordCampPortland, one of many conferences for WordPress disciples that’s cropped around the country in the past few years.

Work obligations kept me from going in person. But I listened to Mullenweg over a live stream that WordCampPortland organizers set up so anybody could feel like they were part of the party no matter where they were – except for the beer. Unfortunately nobody’s managed to live stream a keg, but given enough time I’m sure Portland’s developer community will figure it out one day. But I digress. As of Sept. 22, WordCampPortland organizer Aaron Hockley was still working on getting a recording of Mullenweg’s talk and the rest of the live stream online. Check here for more info.

Mullenweg, 25, has obviously talked about WordPress a million times because he’s one smooth presenter. In fact, if you followed my tweets at #wcpdx, you probably read me say Matt Mullenweg is the Justin Timberlake of blogging: funny, smart, cute and a natural in front of a crowd. Again, I digress.

In an extended Q&A session with the WordPress faithful at the two-day meeting, Mullenweg touched on a number of issues of interest to writers who blog and bloggers who write. Here’s a quick summary:

Blogs as websites – More people are using blogging software such as WordPress as a content management system. That’s a fancy way of saying they’re using a blog as a Website. When Mullenweg asked for a show of hands, about 90 percent of the people at WordCampPortland indicated that’s how they use WordPress. The number of freelance writers using blogs as websites might not be as high, but my guess is it’s large and growing. Here’s an example of what a blog doubling as a Website could look like, this brochure site for pianist Jane Coop.

Word and WordPress – I write posts in the editor built into WordPress.com. It works for me. But I know other writer-bloggers who prefer Microsoft Live Writer or another editor. I didn’t realize until Mullenweg mentioned it that it’s also possible to write posts in Word. Possible, but messy – unless you use a tool on the WordPress editor to delete a lot of extraneous code Word adds when you copy and paste text into the WordPress.com editor. You’ll find instructions explaining how to fix that in a post on the WordPress.com Support forum called Microsoft Word. Thanks to fellow freelance writer @JaneLangille for finding that and sharing it with me.

One-button upgrades – With a little coding, it’s possible to upgrade your self-hosted WordPress blog to the newest version of the software with a touch of a button. True confessions: I didn’t take notes fast enough on this topic. If there’s anyone out there reading this who caught this part of Mullenweg’s presentation or knows more about this, please leave a comment and I’ll update this portion of the post with the info. Update: The latest version of the WordPress.org software allows for one-click upgrades. See explanation from @verso below.

You can hear from Mullenweg on WordPress and related subjects in an interview he did on the local Strange Love Live podcast radio show between WordCampPortland sessions.

Never been to a WordCamp? You can read first-hand accounts of two people’s experiences here and here (caution, technical language ahead), then check out WordCamp Central’s upcoming events to check if there’s one scheduled for your area soon, or here to organize your own.

You’ll probably see more from me about WordPress in coming weeks as I move this site from the free WordPress.com service to the hosted WordPress.org service. Actually, I’ve hired someone else to do the heavy lifting – thanks Ron! – but I’ll be doing a fair amount of work as well. Cleaner design, same content.

Got your own WordPress love story? Do share.

You can find out with a Ratings service WordPress.com recently rolled out for users of its free blogging platform.

Why bloggers will like this: it’s a quick and easy way for readers to provide feedback on your posts – and what other people are saying about them – even if they don’t want to take the time to leave a comment. It’s also a good way to see which subjects readers like, and which they don’t.

The service is courtesy of PollDaddy, creator of a polling software application WordPress’ parent company Automattic bought in 2008 and subsequently integrated into the blogging platform.

WordPress.com users will see the Ratings service in the left column on the main Dashboard. Click on it to open the Ratings panel, which includes options for adding ratings to your blog posts, pages and readers’ comments.

Use the Advanced Settings feature to have ratings appear above or below a post, set up a 5-star system or a Nero-style thumbs up or thumbs down, and choose options such as colors and placement.

Once you’ve set everything up, track feedback using the Reports feature, which appears under the Ratings link on the main Dashboard.

This WordPress TV demo explains more about how to set up the Ratings application. You’ll find more help for getting started on WordPress’ Ratings Support page.

I’ve already enabled this feature for posts and reader comments. If you like what you see, please let me know.

Imprisioned U.S. freelancer ends hunger strike – Roxana Saberi, the freelance broadcast convicted of spying in Iran ended a two-week hunger strike after Iranian authorities agreed to hold an appeal hearing for her next week. The Iranian-American freelance broadcast reporter was arrested in January and convicted of spying in a closed-door trial in April. Saberi’s supporters have created a website, Free Roxana Saberi.

Congress holds U.S. newspaper industry hearings – Plenty of big names held forth on the future of the news business at a May 6 Congresssional hearing. As could be expected, presenters’ POVs varied. HuffPost founder Arianna Huffington was the optimist, declaring, “Despite all the current hand wringing about the dire state of the newspaper industry – well-warranted hand wringing, I might add – we are actually in the midst of a Golden Age for news consumers.” Ex-newspaperman turned Hollywood writer (“The Wire”) David Simon was much more downbeat, saying “High-end journalism is dying in America and unless a new economic model is achieved it will not be reborn on the web or anywhere else.” Replay the entire Webcast here.

Is this what they had in mind? – The Chicago Tribune is working on a new Website called Chicago Now that could be a blueprint for the 21st century news ventures discussed at this week’s Congressional hearings. According to news reports, Chicago Now will combine elements of traditional news coverage with e-commerce, blogs, advertorials and social media. The new site is distinct from RedEye, the Tribune’s free daily paper for “young, urban professionals.” The Tribune and other Tribune publishing holdings filed for federal bankruptcy protection last December.

Other stories, items and websites of interest -

• 2009 Online News Association Awards categories – 14 categories, including four paying a total of $28,000 in cash prizes. Deadline for entries is June 30, 2009.
• The Center for Investigative Journalism is hiring reporters to staff a California investigative reporting initiative funded by $2.4 million in grants.
• The Boston Globe, Las Vegas Sun, ESPN.com and CNN.com each won two 2009 Editor & Publisher EPpy awards for outstanding news industry websites and blogs. See the full list here.
• Neighborlogs – a free service/website template for creating hyperlocal community news sites.
• 17 statistics for monitoring your blog – From ProBlogger.

Twitter tools -

• Tweetmeme – Like a Digg for Twitter, this service finds the hottest stories on the service based on the number of retweets.
• How to integrate Twitter into WordPress – A Web Designer Magazine tutorial that explains in 16 very code-y steps how to weave Twitter into a WordPress.com blog.
• Twitter Secrets – An entire blog dedicated to Twitter apps and tools.

Got Websites, news or tips about the digital media business to share? Send them to me: michellerafter (at) comcast (dot) net.

Now LinkedIn’s made it even easier for bloggers to flag friends and acquaintances about new posts. The networking company has partnered with leading blog software platforms WordPress and Six Apart to display LinkedIn members’ most recent blog posts directly in their LinkedIn profiles.

Adding your WordPress or SixApart blog to your LinkedIn profile is pretty simple. Go to LinkedIn’s new Application Directory page and click on the icon for the blog software you use – the WordPress icon works for WordPress.com blogs and self-hosted blogs that use WordPress.org. You’ll see a bunch of other applications on this page, I’ll talk about those in a minute. Now do the following:

1. Click on the icon to go to an application preview page for your particular blogging software. Check the boxes to have your blog appear in your profile, and on the LinkedIn homepage, and then click on “Update settings.”

2. Next you’ll see a preview page that displays what your blog posts will look like on LinkedIn. Click on the “Edit” link to choose whether to have all of your blog posts show up on LinkedIn, or only blog posts that you’ve tagged “LinkedIn.”

3. If you choose to only have blog posts tagged “LinkedIn” show up, you’ve got to make sure to go to your blog and add a “LinkedIn” tag to all those posts.

4. Once you’ve added your blog to your LinkedIn profile, fellow LinkedIn users will be able to click on the blog header to go to the blog’s homepage, or on a blog post title to go to that post.

I added WordCount to my LinkedIn profile this morning. Start to finish it took about a minute. You can see what my updated profile looks like here. You can watch a video from WordPress about the new feature here.

LinkedIn’s new blogging feature is one of several applications the network is trying in a beta test of Open Social, an open-source application programming interface, or API. Developed by Google and a bunch of development partners, Open Social makes it simpler to create software programs that work across multiple Websites. But unless you’re a software developer, the only thing you really need to know about Open Social is that because of it, you should expect to see more of these mini-programs popping up on your favorite social networks, blogs and other Websites in the future.

Sticky Posts – The first new feature is Sticky Posts, a feature you can use to make one post stay at the top of a page. You could use this feature any number of ways, including keeping a short “Welcome” sign at the beginning of a blog for new readers, or to put up a bulletin about some hot topic. As you’ll see on this blog, I’m using the Sticky Post feature to list titles of several recent blog posts, so visitors can see what I’ve written in the past few days without having to scroll down the page.

Screencasts – Automattic, the company behind WordPress, works with a bunch of newspapers that use the company’s software for the blogs they run. To that end, Automattic and the New York Times have created a series of short videos explaining how to use WordPress, and they’re making them available to WordPress users. Automattic calls these tutorials “Screencasts” and you can read more about them here.

Picture Gallery - WordPress also made it easier to add multiple photographs to a single post, a feature called “Picture Gallery.” Here’s one of those screencasts that explains how.

It wasn’t just me. Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and WordPress.org, the hosted version of the software, recently upgraded the stats charts its bloggers can see for their blogs.

Now, instead of showing a limited history of stats for the top keywords that bring people to my blog, posts that get the most traffic and links people click on, I can see numbers for all those categories and more for the entire history of my blog.

This is cool, and not just because I’m a numbers geek. Here’s why:

* I can use the stats to direct what I write and how I tag it. If I know what search terms people are using to find my blog, I can make sure to write more posts on those topics, and tag those posts with the same or similar keywords so search engines continue to pick them up.

* I can use the stats to generate new blog posts. When I was deciding what to post to cover for my vacation, I used the enhanced stats feature to discover what my top posts of all time had been. Then I grouped some of those posts according to subject matter and ran “best of” lists for five days straight.

* I can use the stats to see who’s reading me where. The stats let me see who’s clicking through to read my posts from comments, messages and links to my blog posts that I leave on public and private social networks. I get a lot of click throughs from comments and messages I leave on Freelance Success, a subscription message board and newsletter for freelancers, so you can be sure I’ll continue to be active on that board. That makes me think that I should be more active on the other social networks I belong to, LinkedIn and Facebook, to see if I can repeat the phenomena. In fact, I’ve already started answering more questions in LinkedIn’s Answers section and including my blog’s URL in my answers.

* I can be a better blogging community friend. I also get a lot of click throughs from certain other freelancers who mention my blog posts on their own blogs a lot, like Sue Poremba, who blogs at I Breathe, Therefore I Write, Susan Johnston, who blogs as The Urban Muse and Joan Stewart, a.k.a. The Publicity Hound. It’s good business, and good blogger etiquette, to return the favor by visiting and sending people to their blogs.

* I can use the stats to see which links in my posts people click on. If my readers are clicking through, it would be a good idea for me to visit those blogs on a regular basis too, if only to let them know how much traffic I’m sending their way.

You can read Automattic’s announcement about WordPress’ enhanced stats charts here.

If you’re a real WordPress geek, you’re probably getting ready for WordCamp San Francisco 2008, a day-long conference on all things WordPress that takes place tomorrow, Aug. 16, at the Mission Bay Conference Center. If you live in the Bay Area and haven’t heard about it, you can see all the details here. And if you go, let me know how it goes.

Reading old blog posts – The first comes from a social media expert I check in with often, Tac Anderson, a Web 2.0 manager at HP who I interviewed for a story awhile back and then got to know a little better. Anderson’s way ahead of me when it comes to blogging and using social networks. He’s got two blogs and hangs out on Twitter, FriendFeed and BrightKite.

Anderson recently wrote a post on his NewCommBiz.com blog explaining why it’s a good idea for bloggers to re-read old blog posts. His reason? You may have thought you knew everything there was to know about a topic when you wrote the original post. But chances are you’ve gained experience, perspective or better sources in the months or years that have passed. If that’s the case, updating old blog posts could be a great way to come up with new posts. You can read more of Anderson’s thoughts on the subject here.

Previewing posts – I’m a post preview fanatic. When I’m writing posts, I constantly use the “Preview this Post” feature of WordPress to see what the post will look like once it’s published. I didn’t even realize some people never use this feature until I read Lorelle VanFossen’s post on previewing, How Often Do You Preview Your Blog Post? According to VanFossen’s informal research, some bloggers never preview their posts while others hit the “Preview” button up to eight times before actually publishing. VanFossen, author of Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging, explains the pros and cons of WordPress’ current post preview set up. Some bloggers like it, some hate it. Either way, VanFossen says, it’s a good idea to use it.

I wrote a weekly newspaper column for more than five years. After that, I wrote a weekly column for Reuters, the financial wire service, for seven years. After a dozen years, writing something once a week – or more – was so second nature that when I stopped working to take care of my kids, I kept writing weekly columns. It’s just that for a time, my “weekly column” was the weekly email update for my oldest kids’ summer swim team. Then it was the weekly report for my son’s middle-school football team. Then it was a weekly newsletter for a charity group my daughter and I belonged to. It didn’t really matter what I was writing about, I was writing.

When I went back to work, I had to get acquainted with the technical aspects of blogging. But on the writing end of things I was good. Because really, I’d never stopped.

All of this is a round about way of saying, if you’re a writer, you need to write, and one of the best ways to practice is a blog. If you blog, it gets you into the habit of writing often. It’s like playing the piano. The more you practice, the faster you get better. The more you write, the faster you get better.

That’s reason No. 1 freelance writers should have a blog. Having a blog can also help you:

Create a Website – Sign up with a free blog hosting site like WordPress (what I use), TypePad or Blogger, and for nothing more than your email address, you get an online home for your resume, bio and clips as well as a blog.

Establish a beat - Whether it’s the 2008 presidential campaign, animal rescue or vegan cooking, blogging about a particular subject can help you stay on top of interesting trends and developments in a specific field, information that you can use for queries and assignments.

Practice different writing styles – If you normally writing in one style, you can use your blog to practice different styles or voices. If you normally write straight news stories for business or trade magazines, use your blog to practice writing opinion pieces, personal essays or comedy bits. If you’re comfortable writing in different styles and genres for yourself, it’s not much of a stretch to pitch those types of stories to potential clients.

Become an expert – If you blog on a specific topic long enough, you can develop an expertise that’s so attractive editors will come looking for you – or at least that’s the hope. You might also draw conference organizers looking for speakers and like-minded writers who want to network. Which leads to….

Make connections – Your blog can be a calling card to introduce yourself to writers, editors and other people in your field. Since I wrote about blogs for writers, a bunch of writers whose blogs I mentioned have asked to put me in their blogrolls and I’m doing likewise. Bingo, instant community.

Interact with readers – When you write for magazines or newspapers, you don’t always get the chance to interact directly with readers. Some publications still don’t run writers’ email addresses with stories and others run a generic address for all letters to the editors. On a blog there’s no barrier between you and your readers, so you can respond to whatever they have to say, which could lead to more things to write about.

Improve your skills – As publications move from paper to the Web, writers have to follow. You don’t need to know everything there is to know about coding HTML, but you should know a little. That goes for podcasts, social networks and other Web-based software too.

Get instant gratification - Send a story idea to a magazine editor and it might take weeks or months to hear back. Seeing a story in print can take even longer. On a blog, you get an idea, do some research, write it, hit the “Publish” button, and there it is, your thoughts for the world to see.

Make money – Although many writers use blogs purely for marketing and networking purposes, some have turned them into money-making ventures. They sell ad space through Google AdSense or sign up for the Amazon Associates program, or use the space to sell self-published books, e-books, webinars, podcasts and related services. You may find that you like blogging so much you want to look for freelance blogging gigs, which you can find on sites like ProBlogger and BloggerJobs.

Other writer/bloggers have weighed in on this subject. You can read their reasons why writers should have blogs here, here and here.

Newspapers see the future, and it’s digital. The latest evidence: earlier this week the New York Times Co. and three other investors sank $29.5 million into Automattic, the company that makes WordPress blogging software runs the WordPress.com free blogging Website. (Disclaimer: I use WordPress.com to create and host this blog.)

According to a news report, the Times was the smallest of the four investors – the others were venture capital firms. But the deal solidifies the paper’s existing relationship with Automattic, which the Times uses to host about 50 blogs, as well as About.com, the Internet information service it acquired in 2005.

As the Times investments illustrate, newspapers’ embrace of digital media has moved beyond erecting Web sites and asking reporters to write blogs. Consider:

• E.W. Scripps, the Cincinnati media conglomerate, is so jazzed about the prospects of its TV and online ventures the company is set to spin them off into a separate public company later this year.
• Ruport Murdoch, new owner of the Wall Street Journal, told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday that he will keep subscriptions for the paper’s online version, though prices will be higher and some “commodity” financial information will be free.
• I’ve already written about how the Los Angeles Times’ Innovations (read Web site) editor, Russ Stanton, is being mentioned as a front runner for the now vacant editor-in-chief gig.

At the same time, newspapers’ economic prospects are looking dim. The latest on that front: the Orange County Register, my old stomping grounds and the place I got started as a tech reporter, is killing its stand-alone Business section and folding it into the News section in one of several cost-cutting measures. When it does, it’ll be the only major daily in the country without a separate Business section. Ouch.

What does it mean for freelancers? Bone up on your coding skills. Seriously, as newspapers go through this transition to digital, it’s more important than ever to keep up with the times, and the Times. Maintaining a blog is one way. Seeking out Web-based work is another. If you don’t believe me, this blog post from Publishing 2.0 called The Only Way for Journalists to Understand the Web is Use It says it a lot more eloquently than I can.

That leads me back to Automattic. The investment is great news for the two-year-old start up, whose major competition includes Blogger, which Google bought in 2003. Other blogging software makers don’t have such deep pockets, but there are a lot of them, including Six Apart, which makes Movable Type and TypePad, plus a host of smaller proprietary and open-source blogging software makers. Automattic said it will use the investment to beef up projects like Akismet, a blog comment spam blocker.

 Updated on February 27, 2008: Thanks to the sharp-eyed reader who pointed out that WordPress is open source software. Automattic uses it to run the WordPress.com blogging Website.