Skip to main content

LexBlog WordPress Plugins For The Aggregation and Curation of Content

LexBlog WordPress Plugins

As a managed WordPress platform for legal publishers, LexBlog runs a WordPress development shop.

Not as web agencies do with custom web development, which is tough to scale for the developer and the customer, but to perform the WordPress development work for our managed WordPress platform which supports all of our legal bloggers.

Plugins, upgrades and features are being worked on and shipped by LexBlog all of the time. Just as any other SaaS (software as a service) provider does, we’re constantly maintaining and improving the platform, and accompanying service.

LexBlog’s plugin work over the last year included plugins for the aggregation and curation of third party articles and blog posts via RSS. These plugins power LexBlog.com and our growing network of syndication sites such as Illinois Lawyer Now.

Another use of these plugins could be the use of delivering aggregated select content to a third-party’s publishing platform.

Meaning what?

Just as you have a WordPress dashboard for the writing, editing and publishing of articles and pages, a site operating these plugins would also include a dashboard with a list of aggregated content that’s been “pulled in.”

This aggregated content would only be content relevant to the publisher, ie, for the Illinois Bar, blog content from Illinois bar members. Could also mean content selected by topic, jurisdiction or otherwise.

In many cases, LexBlog will “preselect” the content to be fed into the aggregator from our global network of legal blog feeds.

This aggregated content would then be curated by the site’s publisher by them selecting in their WordPress dashboard which pieces to publish and where, editing titles, applying tags, inserting appropriate images and more.

Such a feature could be used by a digital publication, a law firm website that’s looking to display content from lawyers, an email newsletter, an association website with contributions from members etc. The possibilities are only limited by one’s imagination.

Why a third-party’s plugins ala LexBlog’s? Regular upgrades and feature additions to the plugins from a company who not only works with WordPress, but works in legal publishing.

The speed, performance and user-experience of a WordPress site is only as good as the sum of the parts. We’re dealing with open source and a vibrant worldwide community of plugin providers.

Trying to manage plugins on your own can become the height of folly. Installing a plugin yourself and then forgetting about it, as many web developers do, will not fly. Upgrades come regularly to the WordPress core software and it’s plugins.

And in the case of legal content, LexBlog is already aggregating the content, only needing to be parsed as appropriate for a publisher.

Most all of what LexBlog has developed until now has been for use on our managed WordPress Platform. It’s time to explore how others operating websites and digital publications may benefit from using LexBlog plugins.

If you’re wondering about those not using WordPress for websites and publishing, they are becoming fewer and fewer. WordPress is on its way to being ubiquitous when it comes to sites with a content management system.

Stay tuned.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

LexBlog Con Can Provide Legal Companies and Law Firms an Opportunity to Connect With Influencers

Imagine a “LexBlog Con” where leading legal brands from startups to traditional larger players to law firms are offered the opportunity to connect with legal bloggers. After all, legal bloggers are quickly supplanting reporters and traditional media as the influencers of our legal community. From a blogger attendee, today, at BlogHer19 in Brooklyn. Day 1 of @BlogHer was wonderful. So many amazing brands to connect with #blogher19 #blogherpro #blogherlife #blogherstyle #blogherhealth19 #womenslifestyle #lifestyleblogger #lifestyleblog pic.twitter.com/IIcVrg9apz — Mademoiselle Skinner (@guestlistblog) September 18, 2019 There may not be a better way for legal industry companies to connect with the biggest influencers in legal than a conference of legal bloggers, ala LexBlog Con. LexBlog Con could start as simple as BlogHer did years ago and, as we had discussed for this last year, as a larger meetup of legal bloggers for a day of blogger education and networking. But ...

Election Coverage Now Comes From Blogs

Election coverage now comes from blogs. Whether they be blogs run by the mainstream media, blogs that have the status of mainsteam media, such as FiveThirtyEight , blogs published by legal commenators, or citizen bloggers, blogs dominate election coverage. In addition, what Americans read on social media is often a report originally published on a blog. This was not the case not that long ago. Sixteen years ago, the Boston Globe’s Teresa Hanafin , reporting from. the Democratic National Convention shared the following: They don’t have space in the media pavilion, and are forced to pay exorbitant prices for lunch at the press cafĂ© – unless they are willing to wait in long lines at McDonald’s in the FleetCenter or bring their own food. The crowded workspace they do have is in the rafters of the convention hall, which they would be sharing with pigeons if this were the old Boston Garden. Who are they? They are bloggers: Those who write weblogs, online journals of sorts with regu...

Baker McKenzie : Content is Our Conversation With Clients and Audience

Content for lawyers is the currency of engagement. Content is not the end goal. Leah Schloss , Baker McKenzie’s associate director for North American communications, as part of Baker’s being recognized as the leading law firm in Good2bSocial’s The Social Law Firm Index shared: We want our content to resonate with people. We don’t want to put out content that people aren’t engaging with. The content we put out there is for our clients and what they say they need from us. We think of our content as part of a conversation with our clients and audience . (Emphasis added) The end game in legal blogging is not to publish a blog post. That’s just a start. The conversation – the dialogue which ensues from “content” is what leading bloggers are after. It’s from this engagement that reputations and relationships are born. Attending a social event for networking, lawyers keen to business development are not focused on the words they speak – the content – they’re focused on the conversa...