By now you’ll know that I’ve started a social bookmarking site for everything Japan-related. If you’ve registered for JapanSoc and write about Japan on your own blog, then you’ll probably want this Digg-style voting button on your site.
Update: The WordPress plugin for this button is now available directly from WordPress. Read about the updates here: New JapanSoc it! Button. April 14th, 2009.
What does the button do?
It allows your readers to easily submit your blog posts to JapanSoc, and then automatically shows how many votes, or socs, your article has received from other JapanSoc’ers. After an article has been submitted, clicking the button will send your readers to JapanSoc where they can vote, or otherwise to the login/registration page.
Why should I use it?
It should encourage more of your readers to sign up for JapanSoc and vote for your posts, giving you more exposure on the social bookmarking site, and bringing new visitors to your blog.
How do I add it to a WordPress blog?
If you are running your own WordPress blog, then follow these instructions:
- Download the JapanSoc WordPress plugin
- Upload the japansoc folder to your wp-content/plugins folder
- Go to Admin -> Plugins, scroll down to JapanSoc: Soc it!, and click activate
- From the HTML tab, type
<!--japansocleft-->or<!--japansocright-->in your post where you want the button to appear
How do I add it to a non-Wordpress blog?
If you don’t have a WordPress blog, you can still use the button, but you must be able to to insert Javascript directly into your post, or be able to edit your blogging template directly.
To add a button on a page with a single post, just copy and paste this:
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.japansoc.com/evb/button.php”></script>
If you have a page with multiple posts, you can separate each instance of the button by using the two lines of code below, and providing a url for each post.
<script type=”text/javascript”>submit_url = ‘url of the post‘;</script>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.japansoc.com/evb/button.php”></script>
Thanks to the Xorsyst, creator of OtakuStuff.com
Credit for the JapanSoc Voting Button goes to Louis from Xorsyst.com, one of the oldest blogs I’ve come across, with content dating back to early 2002!
One of his latest articles announced the launch of OtakuStuff.com, a social bookmarking site for fans of Japanese anime, manga, games and cosplay. In building the site, Louis made the above WordPress plugin, and was kind enough to share it with us at JapanSoc. If you’re an Otaku, make sure you sign up for OtakuStuff and get the Moe It! version of this voting button for your blog.
Glad that you could use it Nick. I know thats something vital to social news aggregators, so I was happy to share it. I have a few things I am working on that I will be sure to share when I’m finished.
The download link has been updated to version 0.2 of this plugin. The new version lets you align the button left or right per post rather than site wide. It also fixes the bug of javascript showing on the search results page for posts with the button on.
Does anyone use Joomla? I would love a plugin for this I have a the digg one implemented now but would prefer to switch to the Japan related JapanSoc. I am trying to work it out now myself but just don’t have the time…let alone the knowledge haha.