I’ve installed the new Highlighter plugin for WordPress from the folks at Unique Blog Designs. Looked interesting AND they are going to give away an iPad. Is it the “next big thing”? Who knows though it does seem kind of cool at first glance, UBD is a great company, it is free, and I would really love to win an iPad.
So, what does this plugin do? Well, select some text with your mouse and find out. You can leave a comment, place the snippet on your twitter page or your facebook wall (oh crap, I just used the word face, hope I don’t get sued). It will not help you lose weight though; leaving a comment on this blog using Highlighter will burn .003% less calories as you will not have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of this huge page to leave a comment.
Is this just another spam magnet to add to the arsenal, I don’t think so since Highlighter entries must pass through Askimet the same as a normal comment. If this thing increases the likelihood that folks will comment then I will assume spam will increase as well. The fact that text needs to be selected in order to initiate the first comment leads me to believe that the spambots will not be able to do this. Looking at the markup however reveals that the form elements are there so perhaps a bot could in fact fill out the form and generate a comment. So what… unlike a normal comment, the name of the commenter is not linked, so there is no point in spamming for a link. The fact that there is no link could be a downside as well since legitimate readers may not bother to comment because of this.
I have to admit that Highlighter is a pretty cool plugin and haven’t seen anything like it so I’m giving it a try. It promises to increase reader engagement and help you build a mailing list. Try it yourself. Downloading and installing it gives you one entry into the iPad giveaway. Writing an article with a link gives you two more entries. Go to highlighter.com and give it a try.
Update: Not all that great really. Removed.
Aso, be aware that this plugin contains timthumb.php which has an exploit making any site using it vulnerable to hacks