We’re starting a “how to” series to showcase how Placeling can help you. First up is how you can easily create a mobile store finder within WordPress using Placeling’s plugin.
Over the past few months at Placeling we’ve had the opportunity to work with hundreds of WordPress developers and learn how they’re using WordPress to go mobile. They want to use WordPress to create store finders, tourism guides, real estate maps - you name it.
We’ve also met hundreds of local bloggers - foodies, fashionistas, travellers, moms - and they all want their readers to be able to see - on their phone - nearby places they recommend.
But both of these groups are stymied by the fact that WordPress doesn’t support location. There’s no way for WordPress to show you posts or pages based on your current location.
Or rather there wasn’t a way until now.
Our updated plugin makes it effortless to guide people - on their phone - to places you’ve written about.
Here’s a quick overview of what it does:
- You can tag any post or page with a location
- We automatically create a new page in your site and put a map on it
- Click a pin and the corresponding post or page opens
- Click the “arrow” button on the map to see nearby places
Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like on the phone (try it):
The little blue dot is your current location. You can see nearby blog posts and tap to open them. All in WordPress via your web browser.
What do you need to get started?
- A self-hosted WordPress blog (WordPress.com doesn’t work yet. Let them know about Placeling)
- A Placeling account (you can sign up from the plugin)
And is there any cost?
Not for most people. We give you 1,000 map views per day and after that you can upgrade to our $20/month premium version. It also allows you to see the map as a list or a photo view and full CSS control.
So download the plugin and get started today. And once you’ve installed it, send us a note via contact[at]placeling[dot]com so that we can promote your site.
To celebrate the launch of our WordPress plugin - which turns your blog into an iPhone-enabled city guide - we’ve got a sweet contest (bad pun intended).
Simply guess the number of jelly beans in the jar below.
The winner gets…the jar full of jelly beans! We’ll ship it anywhere in continental North America (you can still enter the contest if you don’t live there, but you’ll have to send it to a more local friend).
How To Enter:
- Tweet this post with the “tweet” button below and replace the “N” with your guess:Tweet
- Follow us to be notified of the winner and check out all the fun, non-jelly bean-related stuff we’re building: Follow @placeling
The Rules:
- Contest closes at 6pm (Pacific time) on Friday March 30th, 2012
- Shipping address must be in continental North America
- In the event of ties, the first account to tweet the closest number wins
- If you tweet multiple guesses, we’ll take your last tweet as your official guess
At Placeling, we love blogging. Blogging gives each of us a voice and lets us share what we’ve got to say with the rest of the world.
An incredible share of blogging is devoted to locations:
- Foodies talk about restaurants they love
- Travellers write about places they’ve visited
- Parents talk about places that are perfect for families
But all of these local stories suffer from the same problem: you can walk right past a place recommended by your favourite blogger and never know it.
Because there’s never been a way to see nearby blog posts on your iPhone.
Until now.
Today we’re launching Placeling’s Wordpress plugin.
You write blog posts just like you’re used to, and with one simple step, they go to Placeling and you can see them on a map on your iPhone.
Here’s an example.
The other weekend one half of team Placeling went to the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver to see their exhibit on Guo Fengyi. He loved it and blogged about it.
Now it’s on his blog…
…and if you walk by you can see it in the Placeling iPhone app (that “More on Web” link goes to his blog)…
…and if you explore his Placeling map, you’ll see a pin for the Contemporary Art Gallery with a link to the blog post.
And this took only two extra clicks.
Let us show you how.
The Placeling plugin puts a little marker next to where you upload photos:
Click it, and up comes a search box showing places you’ve recently bookmarked using Placeling (you’ll need to create a free account at Placeling in order to use the plugin). Pick one of them or use the search box to add a different place (as you type, the locations will update):
When you click on one, you’ll see a preview of a footer we put at the bottom of your blog post:
That footer will link to your Placeling account and also let users learn more about this location.
Click “save” and then write your blog post.
The Placeling plugin shows you a map and the place you’ve written about; you need to add a short summary that will appear on Placeling:
When you publish, the summary, a link to your blog and any photos in the post will be sent to Placeling.
How easy was that? And now your blog is an iPhone-based city guide.
