Automatic Plans WordPress Theme Marketplace

Automatic Media, developer of WordPress, announced WordPress Theme Market­place in November. The store, hosted by Automatic, and available to bloggers with wordpress.com blogs, will allow developers to upload original, link-free, GPL-compli­ant themes for sale. Automatic will take a reported 50 percent of the proceeds from each sale.

Automatic founder Matt Mullenweg wrote on his blog that the themes would have to meet quality standards, as well as the basic technical ones. Because of the GPL requirement, marketplace themes will be available free to wordpress.org users.

In another example of blog-based cross-pollination, it’s worth noting that we first heard about the Theme Marketplace on Read/Write Web (www.readwriteweb.com), which got the news from a Twitter post, and a Spanish-to-English translation of a report about Mullenweg’s WordCamp Argentina presentation, where the mar­ketplace plan was unveiled.

Zune Directory Opens

Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace podcasting directory began accepting submissions in November, in order to seed the directory for the Zune 2 launch on November 13.

To submit a podcast, producers must download Zune Marketplace software for Windows. Microsoft says a Mac option will be available, but no timeframe has been set for that option, which would likely be accessible via the Web.

Zune users can browse or search the Marketplace directory to find podcasts, or they can use a personal podcast feed to add shows of their choosing.

Learn more at www.zune.net.

New Blog System for Neighbors 2

WebCrossing offers a new blog system within its private-label social network system, Neighbors 2. The new system provides group blogs, and sports com­pletely redesigned personal blogs with a new WYSIWYG editor. The new system was made automatically available in mid October, with no installation required, on all WebCrossing Neighbors networks.

Group administrators can activate blogs for their group members with one click in the Group Settings panel. The Group Blog feature lets private groups use blogs for group news and updates. Public groups can allow entry posting by group administrators only, by qualifying group members only, or by any system member. Group administrators can also designate who can add comments to blog entries.

The new system archives entries auto­matically by month and by year. Complete tagging capabilities let members categorize their posts for easy retrieval. RSS support is available for blogs in publicly available spaces. A new Related Links feature allows authors to add supplemental URLs for information associated with the blog entry. The new Blog system supplants the simpler Journal system, and automatically retains the Journal archive.

WebCrossing Neighbors is available immediately as a server hosted package for maximum uptime, priced based on traffic and member storage capacity, starting at $195/month. For more information visit webcrossing.com/Home/webcrossing_neighbors.htm.

Bloggers Unite to Do Good

Social network BlogCatalog (BlogCatalog.com) will launch its fourth social awareness campaign on December 17. This Bloggers Unite campaign challenges its more than 80,000 members and other bloggers to do something good offline — an act of kindness — and then post about it, using words, pic­tures, and/or videos to tell the story.

In previous campaigns, Bloggers Unite raised money for students across the US via the Omidyar-supported DonorsChoose.org; significantly increased organ-donation awareness; and prompted more than 10,000 bloggers to call for an end to abuse.

Bloggers Unite does not specify which nonprofit organizations will benefit. Instead, the organization will solicit and coordinate companies that will pledge a donation to the blogger and/or to the charity of the blogger’s choice. Prizes will be awarded to bloggers based on their posts, pictures, or videos.

Preeso Premium Podcasting

SubscribeCast Technologies announces the release of a Web-based premium podcast­ing application: Preeso is a redesign of SubscribeCast’s first premium podcasting application, which currently is the backbone for paid podcasts including Mysterious Uni­verse (mysteriousuniverse.org) and the Ed Schultz Radio Show (bigeddieradio.com).

Podcasters who sign up for Preeso can host their media on any server they choose: Yahoo, Libsyn, AOL, and so on. Preeso is also server-OS independent. Once Preeso knows where your media is located, it creates and manages RSS feeds for subscribers. When the application senses abuse, such as a sub­scriber attempting to share his or her feed, it responds automatically in a variety of customizable ways, including sending email to the abuser, or shutting off the RSS feed.

The application hides the original Web location of the delivered media, so sub­scribers cannot use their old RSS feeds to mine the URL and access media after their subscriptions have ended. For pricing and further details, visit www.preeso.com.

A New Way to Comment

The intriguingly named Intense Debate (intensedebate.com) has launched a public beta release of its blog-comment­ing plug-in.

Intense Debate Comments are embed­ded into a user’s blog like widgets. Users can set up profiles to include easy access to their social networking pages. They can also follow comments across other blogs from specific users, through RSS feeds. Basic stats, on both commenters and publishers, are available, and users can arrange for threaded comments to keep track of the conversation.

Bloglines Rankings

Bloglines is the latest site to offer blog rankings to its readers. The Bloglines Top 1000 is still a beta feature. The listings include the most popular sites among users who subscribe to RSS feeds via Bloglines. The list is updated each Monday evening, and includes current position, +/- positions, and a graph showing rankings over time for each entry.

Bloglines says ranking blogs by the number of users who subscribe with Bloglines has created a list that includes more than the “usual suspect” tech and mainstream news sites. The most surpris­ing top ten blog in mid-November was The Shifted Librarian, a blog for librarians transitioning to the digital age. Tech blogs including Slashdot and Wire Top Stories also appear in the top ten, along with mainstream news sites from the BBC and CNN. The Bloglines Top 1000 is at beta.bloglines.com/topfeeds.

SharedBook Updates Blog Printing Tools

SharedBook released the latest version of its Blog2Print widget. Blog2Print, which allows Blogger users to turn blog posts into printed hardback or paperback books, offers enhanced photo and text-wrapping capabilities. SharedBook also provides com­merce tools to let bloggers share in revenue from the sale of their books. The bloggers’ share is 20 percent of the sale price.

SharedBook provides an open API for Blog2Print, and recently demonstrated its use with AllRecipes.com. Members of the recipe site can publish cookbooks for sale, using the customized version of Blog2Print called Create-A-Cookbook. Details at blog.sharedbook.com.