Thank Me Later is a plug-in which will automatically send a thank you email to readers after they post a comment. It can be set to send the message a time after the comment was posted (an hour, day, week, month, etc). It is effective as it will remind readers of their comments and gets them engaged with future discussion and your blog. It is useful to attract “one-time” readers who will post one comment, and then forget about your blog.

Thank You messages are fully customizable and provide use of “tags” which represent variables. So, for example, you can refer to readers by their names, and reference other variables including comment page, the comment ID, etc. Support for PHP is also included to make the system even more extensible to those with experience.

Message overview page

Factory Default E-mail

HTML E-mail

Version 1.0

Version 1.1 fixes a bug which prevents Thank Me Later sending emails. It is recommended you update to 1.1 as soon as possible. Also new in 1.1:

• Thank Me Later should now work when in a sub-directory of /wp-content/plugins/. This error was due to misuse of PHP’s basename function.
• Change in how settings are saved for performance reasons.

Version 1.2:

• Ability to send email for previous comments (for first-time use).
• Facility to send an example email so you can see what it looks like.

Version 1.3:

• Support for HTML emails.
• More friendly time settings.
• Send history, and scheduled emails.

Version 1.3.1 is a minor upgrade which supports localization, to allow for translation.

Version 1.4:

• Change in database table design, to support improved functionality. WARNING: By upgrading, all previous records will be deleted. This includes send history and comments in the queue.
• Spam email addresses and comments are hidden from Send History and Scheduled Emails.
• Improved installation process to make upgrades easier (required for table design changes).
• Fixes a few spelling mistakes and problems due to localisation in 1.3.1.

Version 1.4.1: No information

Version 1.5:

• Uses WP-Cron to process queue at regular intervals.
• Comes with pre-installed “templates”, which allow you to quickly place titles, excerpts and URLs into your emails dynamically.
• Allows you to restrict posts by tags and categories.

Version 1.5.1:

• Fixed some minor timing issues.
• Fixed menu formatting in WP 2.7.

Version 1.5.2: No information

Version 1.5.3:

• Uses different mode of scheduling sends, which is hopefully more reliable than WP-CRON.

Version 1.5.3.1: No information

Version 2.0:

• Multiple messages
• ‘Better’ i18n support
• nl2br() functionality, to make writing HTML messages easier.
• Syntax highlighting for PHP (limited support).
• User restrictions (ie, only send to logged in users)
• Opt out page.
• Modularised interface (and code).

A few months ago, I started to develop a WordPress plugin which enabled people on my blog to write articles, and then submit them. In turn, I would make an offer (of money), depending on how suitable the article was. The author would then accept or decline the offer; leading, if they accepted, to publication. The idea for this plugin arose because I previously had to sent e-mails back and forth between authors, to come to an agreed offer. Having everything done via WordPress’s interface would have made things a lot easier; and would make it easier for authors to submit content.

Unfortunately, I stopped developing this plugin in its early stages; I no longer had need for it. However, now, it seems that the plugin may be useful to me again. I have also been considering how useful it may be to other bloggers: I thought about creating a platform for buying and selling articles amongst networked WordPress blogs. This would allow authors to write articles, and get paid; and allow blogs to publish relevant content, without the effort of actually writing articles. This cross-blog platform would be functional along with the local blog sales environment.

What I am thinking about is authors auctioning and selling for fixed price their content. They would get paid by blogs, and their content would be rated; for other blogs to consider. A small fee would be taken, and authors can withdraw their earnings.

So, what do you think? Would you use such a plugin? Any positive feedback I get will only push me to actually develop this thing.

Stumble! for WordPress adds random article functionality to WordPress, behaving in a similar way to MediaWiki’s random article feature and StumbleUpon’s StumbleThru (hence, “Stumble!”).

The plugin also integrates with YARPP to allow stumbling amongst similar articles. You may have seen the green “Liked this Article?” button on some other blogs:

The Green Stumble Button

The plugin is easy to use. To stumble on your blog (providing the plugin is installed), simply link to http://<your-blog-address>/?stumble; for example:

There's loads more!
Why not read a <a href="http://infinity-infinity.com/?stumble">random article</a>?

You can also stumble amongst related articles (powered by YARPP) using ?stumble=<post-id>, such as:

<a href="http://infinity-infinity.com/?stumble=24">Read a related article</a>

By default and further configuration, Stumble! for WordPress gives priority to posts which have the most comments, so your best content is stumbled first. This ultimately leads to readers seeing your most interesting content, and therefore spending more time on your blog.

The Stumble! for WordPress network allows related blogs (or your own blogs, if you choose) to “mash” their articles so readers can stumble across other blogs. Over 400 blogs have joined the global network.

I am currently developing the next version of Thank Me Later, my WordPress plugin which sends out e-mails to your blog’s commenters a few days after they post the comment.

Development is currently proceeding well. I have compiled the following list of features which will definitely be included in Thank Me Later:

• Support for multiple messages, with different selection probabilities to make each message appear unique.
• Full(er) internationalisation support.
• Optional nl2br functionality for HTML messages, to avoid using <br /> when writing messages.
• Syntax Highlighting in messages (optional; limited support).
• Targeting/emailing Options:
  • Only send e-mails to logged (out|in) users.
  • Optionally allow visitors to opt out from e-mails.
  • Optional restriction to never send the same email to a visitor twice (unless they are no other messages configured).
• Improved message templates, which allow third-party plugins to add their own templates for messages.

Here are a few screenshots:

Adding a new message

Message overview

If you want to get a BETA version of the plugin, just leave a comment here stating so (it will be sent to your email address). I also want to get Thank Me Later translated into other languages; if you can help, please comment here or contact me. Also, if you have an idea, please share it…