Weblog Tools Collection

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. . . and growing! We have had a couple of really large (Thanks to Matt and Automattic for their generous contributions towards the competition) and some smaller donations towards the final set of prizes for the plugin competition with the total purse standing at over $3500 dollars. Thanks to everyone who has donated money and time towards the competition to help make it a success. The community really appreciates your involvement. We continue to look for donations and sponsors to make the pot sweeter.

This is your chance to not only showcase your work to the WordPress community but to also win fabulous cash prizes. If you are planning on releasing a plugin for the competition, head over to the plugin competition blog, register yourself and post about your plugin there. We have had a spat of registrations but the number of announcements on the blog has been much less. Please tell us about your cool new entry; our readers would love to know and help test and fine tune your plugins for you!

For those that are following the competition and looking for cool plugins to test, there already are a couple of posts on the Plugin Competition Blog to whet your appetite. Please provide your feeback for the authors. It will help them make their plugins better and your votes (on the final entries, not on the announcements) will help tremendously in the judging.

The email address to submit entries is wpplugincomp [at] wltc [dot] net Please use this email address towards the end of the competition to send in your entries into the plugin competition. You do not need to send in your entries till the last day and sending in your entries early will not give you any advantage. On the contrary, waiting till the last moment will give you more chances to tweak and modify your plugin to your benefit. Please use the contact form in the menu above to send in your questions about the competition or if you want to pledge some money towards prizes.

The WordPress Plugin Competition is in full swing. A lot of people have expressed interest in participating in the competition and some prizes have already been committed. As in the years past, the plugin competition prizes will be listed on the prize page. But here is a short list of what is in store for the winners.

• Weblog Tools Collection is offering up $1000 of prize money for the winners
• James and Andrew from Incsub have offered up $250 for a plugin that is WPMU compatible. They add that WPMU plugins are not that dissimilar to regular plugins, but need to run automatically and efficiently via wp-content/mu-plugins and require users to make no hard code changes (just edits in Settings) and for global administration to be possible via the Site Admin menu.
• Geof F. Morris has generously offered $100 towards the competition
  
• WindowsObserver.com has provided a copy of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas for the PC and a copy of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
• OIOPublisher has provided four copies of their advertising plugin for the winners
• Will you help?

We are still looking for more donations to add to the plugin competition coffers. If you have benefited from the plugin competition in the past, want to promote WordPress plugin development and proliferation or would like to help us out in recognizing and celebrating WordPress plugin authors, please consider donating a few bucks. Your support will go a long way and every dollar will be used as prize money for the winners.

We are also looking for sponsors of the plugin competition. A lot of people view the competition, help choose the winners and then download and benefit from the plugins developed for the competition. The benefits of sponsoring the competition are two fold, especially if you are directly involved with WordPress. Not only will your company or product receive exposure from the sponsorship, you will also help in promoting plugin development and can help provide the extra incentive to plugin authors and help them develop fantastic plugins such as WordPress Automatic Upgrade and Who Sees Ads which were both winners in the last plugin competition.

We’re one month into the plugin competition, so I thought I should write in and ask you how plugin development is going on?

Are you ready with a plugin?
If so, then it is time to create an entry on the Plugin Competition Blog. If you do not have author access then create an account and contact us to upgrade your account. Don’t forget to mention the plugin page on your site.

Are you still hunting for ideas?
Take a look at a post I made a while back.

Need some questions answered?
Ask away

Looking to sponsor the competition or donate some prize money?
Please contact us. Donating money is easy and quick and it helps out the WordPress community.

Remember we have just another month to go before the end of the plugin competition.

How do I start writing on the Plugin Blog and submit my ideas for feedback from readers?
After you have registered yourself on the Plugin Blog or if you already have a registration but do not have author permissions, please contact us with your details and a little information about the plugin(s) you are planning to enter into the competition and we will enable your account. This is a security precaution and we apologize for any inconvenience.

When should I submit my plugin?
We recommend that you submit your plugin to us at the end of the competition. This will give you enough time to test the plugin for any bugs and resolve them. You will have time to look into feature requests from your visitors. This will also ensure that you don’t need to submit multiple bugfixes to us. We prefer receiving a single final version for our records.

Won’t I be at a disadvantage if I submit it at the end?
No, of course not. Voting will begin only after the plugin competition ends. Also, our judges will take a look at the plugin only after the end of the competition.

Is okay to release it prior to submitting it for the contest?
Plugins released in these two months are eligible for the competition. In fact if you release it now, you have time to test it and receive feedback from the community so an early release to public is a good thing. Conversely, an early release to the public does not mean an automatic submission to the competition.

How do I know the plugin is new?
You can search to see if a similar plugin is available in WordPress Extend. You can also use any search engine to see if a similar plugin is available.

What about the plugins in last year’s competition
If you need an idea of the type of plugins that have been submitted in the past, here is a list of plugins from last year’s competition.

I am a WordPress user. I have an idea, where do I submit it?
You can also post them in this post or this posting in our News Forum.

How do I sponsor a prize?
If you would like to sponsor a prize or donate some money to the competition, please contact us. We are actively looking for prize money.

Do you have any other questions about the competition? Please post them in the comments section below.

Good day. I am Ajay D’Souza. I blog at http://ajaydsouza.com/ and http://techtites.com/. Those of you who have been following this blog for more than a year may remember my daily release posts as well as the A-Plugin-A-Day series. MBA life has kept me busy since then, but that’s another story.

As part of my new assignment out here, I’ll be looking after the Plugin Competition. I’ll be maintaining the WordPress Plugin Competition Blog as well as making weekly posts both here and at the Competition Blog.

With the WordPress Plugin Competition 2.5 beginning today, I thought I’d just write in with a few tips on making your entry.

Firstly, read the rules to be followed are listed in the post. Please make sure that your entry does not break any of them.

Getting Inspired

One of the important rules that we have is that the plugins should be new, i.e. no updates to already existing plugins. One great place to get inspired is WordPress Ideas. WordPress Ideas is a place where the people from the WordPress Community, both users and developers vote for what they would like included in WordPress. Some have been implemented, while some may actually appear in future versions and still others that may not be. So, why not make a plugin to accommodate for the latter two?

You can also hunt for ideas in these posts or this posting in our News Forum.

Offering the plugin for download

Something that many authors forget in their zeal to develop a plugin (or a theme) is its documentation.

Firstly, make sure your plugin zip file contains a readme.txt. If needed, include a full fledged help section as well. You can also put this on the plugin release page on your site.

Next, create a separate page on your blog / site dedicated for the plugin. Posts are a no-no! They get lost in the crowd.

Make sure the page has the following:

• Overview
• Requirements
• Features
• Installation Instructions
• Download Link
• License
• Method to get support

When linking to the download file, one method I follow is to link to a file without any version etc. e.g. it reads simply pluginname.zip. The purpose of this is that I can always update the zip file with the latest version of the plugin without bothering to change the link.

Old versions of the plugin can be archived as pluginname_v1.0.zip, pluginname_v1.1.zip and so on.

Sending it to us

You’ll need to send your plugin to us via email. We will reveal the email address that you need to send the plugins to in the second month of the competition.

The competition is on for another two months, which gives you plenty of time to release a feature rich plugin.

Before that, release a well tested version to the public. Fix any bugs that come up, try to provide more features as requested.

The WordPress community is demanding and extremely helpful at guiding you down your path.

All the best for now.

To the WordPress Community

I’m sure you’ll love the competition and many of the plugins that stem from it. Authors are always hunting for ideas and who better to tell them than you. Please feel free to post your ideas in the comments section below.

Or, you can also post them in any of these two posts or this posting in our News Forum.

If you would like to sponsor a prize or donate some money to the competition, please contact us. Lots of eyes see these competitions and your encouragement goes a long way in helping provide incentives.

Stay tuned and please help spread the word.

The following are the results for the WordPress Plugin Competition, in reverse order.

Consolation Prize

The consolation prize winner is Ozh for Who Sees Ads. WhoSeesAds is a wonderfully useful plugin that lets WordPress users determine whe sees the ads on your blog. Ozh wins hosting from Pajama Mommy and a free 48″ wallhog from Wallhogs.com

Third Prize

The third prize winner is Keith Dsouza for WordPress Automatic Upgrade which lets you automatically upgrade WordPress from your admin interface with this Plugin. Keith wins a Baby Hosting Plan for 1 year (Valued at $134.40) from Hostgator, a copy of Translator Pro 5.0 and $200 in cash.

Second Prize

The second prize winner is Barry for MyDashboard. MyDashboard lets you customize your WordPress Dashboard with this plugin and lots of cool gadgets. This plugin also makes the Dashboard skinnable. Barry wins a Swamp Hosting Plan for 1 year (Valued at $194.40) from Hostgator, an autographed copy of Lorelle’s new book, Blogging Tips and $300 in cash

Grand Prize Winner

The Grand Prize Winner of the Wordpress Plugin Competition is Anirudh Sanjeev for his OneClick Plugin. OneClick is a Wordpress Plugin and Firefox Extension combo that allows you to install WordPress plugins and themes from your browser with one click. Anirudh wins a Basic Dedicated Server for 6 months (Valued at $1,059) from Hostgator, $600 in cash and an 8 GB iPod Nano (or cash equivalent) from Imthiaz

Congratulations to all the winners! All the entries in the competition were all of very high quality and it was quite difficult to choose the top few. Also, judging from the response of the community and the accolades that went around, the competition was a success for the WordPress community. A heartfelt thank you goes from me to all the participants, the Sponsors of the competition, the users of plugins, those who helped rate them on the Competition blog as well as the judges who put their time and effort into sifting through thousands of lines of code. To facilitate quicker distribution of the prizes, I would appreciate it if the winners would send me a quick email with their Paypal information.

Today is the last day of the Wordpress Plugin Competition. So today is the last day for you to submit plugins to the competition. If you were planning on submitting a plugin, please email the final version of the code to mark at wltc dot net. I must receive your code by the end of today for your plugin to be eligible as an entry into the competition.

If you, as a plugin user, have not checked out the competition entries and tried out some of the incredible plugins, head over there right away. Once you have downloaded and used the plugins, make sure you come back to the competition and rate the plugins that you have used. Your ratings will go a long way in helping us determine the best entries into the competition.

Thanks again to all the sponsors and donors that have made this competition a reality.

The WordPress Plugin Competition is rapidly headed towards a fantastic close. If you were planning on entering a plugin, get registered on the Plugin Competition Blog and post your entry there. Remember, in order to be considered as an entry into the competition, you have to post an entry on the blog and send in the final code to me via email by July 31st. Some fantastic entries have already been released for the competition and we have about $1000 in cash and other cool sponsored prizes. Thanks to all the sponsors and the donors. There is still time to throw in a few bucks to help sweeten the pot (look for the ChipIn Widget).

I have also added a rating feature for the entries on the Competition Blog. If you have not rated your favorite plugins, head over to the Plugin Competition Blog and help decide the best plugins. The ratings can have a significant impact on the final outcome of the competition. Also, since there have been a few questions on this issue, I would like to make it clear that as an entrant into the competition, you may release your plugin anywhere you like as long as you post your intentions on the plugin blog. There are no other restrictions on release as long as you follow the rules.

Also of interest to the WordPress aficionado is the Sandbox Designs Competition run by Scott. Last date for that competition is July 29th.

The WordPress Plugin Competition is going strong with 15 plugins announced and actively being developed and at least five more in the works. I am hoping that more developers will throw their hats into the arena in the next couple of weeks. Remember the last date of the competition is the 31st of July. That means that if you are planning to enter the competition, you will need to have submitted your plugin to me via email by the end of that day.

I have added a ChipIn widget to the competition blog to collect donations for prizes and I thank every sponsor and donor. We have some really great sponsors for the competition and so far the prizes are eclectic and pretty cool. We have also collected almost $900 $1000 from various donors as prizes for the competition. I am hesitant to put together the final three sets of prizes because I am hoping we have some more donations and a few more contestants.

Thanks to everyone that has helped to publicize the competition and to everyone who has helped me put it together for the community.

Is everyone ready for another Wordpress Plugin Competition? I know I am, especially with all the cool stuff going on around Wordpress development, this would be a good time to get the ball rolling again. This time I have some help (thanks Ajay), more readers, maybe some more sponsors, more prizes and we hope to see lots of good code, fun projects, meet lots of nice people and help the Wordpress community along the way.
Prizes will be determined very soon. If you would like to sponsor a prize, please contact me. Lots of eyes see these competitions and your encouragement goes a long way in helping provide incentives. The plugin competition will begin on the 1st of June and will last till the end of July.

Rather than categories for prizes, this time we will do a multi level judging for a first second and third place. The plugins should be officially submitted through email and the Plugin Competition Blog should be used as a launching ground for plugin ideas, updates, development news etc. The plugins will be judged by a panel of at least three judges with Ajay and myself taking two of the spots. I hate herding judges and will probably hand pick one or two more people.

All code must be GPL and should be available for download through the Competition Blog. The plugins can be modified and tweaked till the last day of the competition or until the author sends us an email with the final version of the code. Plugins can also be made available through the Wordpress Extend pages and linked back from the blog. In essence, the Plugin Competition Blog is the vehicle of communication for all contestants.

Some relevant details:

• Running time for competition = 2 months starting the 1st of June till the 31st of July.
• True Wordpress plugins only. No manual modifications can be required of users.
• You cannot submit plugins that have been released already.
• All plugins require documentation as in the Wordpress Extend pages.
• Preliminary support for the plugin has to be provided to the public.
• Any and all prizes/controversies/issues will be judged and decided at my sole discretion.

More details to be added with time.

Stay tuned.